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R. Guyovich posted:uhhhh no if anything lend lease is usually overstated as a reason for the soviet military strength 20% of the total armored vehicles, 20% of the fighters, 30% of the bombers, gobs of weapons/ammunition/fuel/tools/food, entire factories, plus the general purpose trucks used to move everything and everyone around. It's hardly even mentioned in the US and it was not taught in the USSR - at least not to anyone I've ever spoken to educated in the USSR. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Apr 22, 2017 |
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Apr 22, 2017 17:52
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im glad that dresden, tokyo, hiroshima etc
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Apr 22, 2017 18:26
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Dead Reckoning posted:That's a rather poor analysis. The bombs didn't suddenly appear before Truman to ask if he was prepared to secure U.S. interests at the cost of 120,000+ Japanese lives. You're applying hindsight to the decision instead of looking at what the decision makers at the time knew, and the pressures they were under. Truman had a choice and at the end of the day, he decided to use his two bombs in rapid succession. Undoubtably, there was a strategic calculus at stake with that decision. Also the Soviets just needed a toe hold and the time to make it happen (causalities were a non-issue. Also I haven't a Russian while living in Russia, who pretended it was only a Russian sacrifice. They will say it was a Soviet sacrifice and that's true.
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Apr 22, 2017 18:31
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I like how when nuclear physics was just magic and theory we started the first self sustaining nuclear reaction in the middle of one of our largest cities which was also the central transhipment point for our food.
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Apr 22, 2017 19:54
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:I like how when nuclear physics was just magic and theory we started the first self sustaining nuclear reaction in the middle of one of our largest cities which was also the central transhipment point for our food. We tested a thermonuclear weapon under shallow ground in Nevada and the dust ejected into the sky spread fallout into Iowa
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Apr 22, 2017 20:04
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Dead Reckoning posted:That's a rather poor analysis. The bombs didn't suddenly appear before Truman to ask if he was prepared to secure U.S. interests at the cost of 120,000+ Japanese lives. You're applying hindsight to the decision instead of looking at what the decision makers at the time knew, and the pressures they were under. Considering how in the dark Truman was about the bomb before he took office, you can sort of say the bombs just appeared in front of him. The context is harder. Truman didn't have a lot of foreign policy experience. He was dismissed as a "haberdasher" who had been installed by the Missouri democratic machine. An accidental president. Thrust into the role, he absolutely had to weigh post war aims when considering to drop the bomb. First among them was the position of the Soviet Union compared to the allies. Churchill was vehemently anti-communist. Many of the American generals were too. Hell, many of the Nazis were wondering why were bothering to fight them when we really should be joining forces to beat the Soviets. All of this was in Trumans head. Okinawa had been bloody. Kamikazes seem to prove the finality of the Japanese will to fight. As did the fight to the last man battles in the pacific. And the civilian suicides after the American victories. After the firebombings, after the discovery of the death camps, faced with the threat of the red army, I don't think the decision to use the bomb was difficult for Truman. He wanted the war to be over. He wanted the Soviets put in check. All of these goals were served by the bombs.
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Apr 22, 2017 20:07
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Another vote for watching The World at War, it really is great. Can't bring a lot to the discussion since that's my only source of knowledge. I hope some streaming service gets hold of it, I wonder what it would do to someone's head if they binge-watched as if it was a season of 24.
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Apr 22, 2017 21:24
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what's a more accurate indicator of sperg, military history or trains?
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Apr 22, 2017 21:30
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icantfindaname posted:what's a more accurate indicator of sperg, military history or trains? Knowing about the different guages of Russian and German rail.
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Apr 22, 2017 21:34
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icantfindaname posted:what's a more accurate indicator of sperg, military history or trains? let me tell you about american tank destroyer doctrine 
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Apr 22, 2017 22:01
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Okay guys, Zhukov, Rommel, Patton. gently caress marry kill.
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Apr 22, 2017 22:19
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Starving Wolf posted:Okay guys, Zhukov, Rommel, Patton. gently caress marry kill. kill rommel, gently caress patton, marry zhukov 
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Apr 22, 2017 22:22
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kill Patton, gently caress Rommel, marry Zhukov
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Apr 22, 2017 22:28
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blowfish posted:let me tell you about american tank destroyer doctrine I know you're joking but tanks are undeniably cool machines of death and I welcome all insanely detailed tank chat. Although I'm more curious about how tank life was. I've heard a variety of opinions and experiences here (although I'm sure type of tank and location mattered a ton). I watched the first half of Fury in the past week and the idea of "tank life sucks" kinda matches up with WaW. Where can I read more about the stuff? Preferably firsthand.
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Apr 23, 2017 01:03
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Warbadger posted:Uhh, Finland didn't pursue the war with the Soviets. Stalin literally had to invent a reason to go grab the parts of Finland he wanted by having his own guys shell a Soviet village. At that point Finland's side in the whole thing was pretty much set for them - either ally with the Nazis they didn't like or ally with the former Nazi ally (aspiring ally?) who literally just invaded them. Finland in 1941 had a choice whether or not to join in the invasion in the USSR and chose to join in. It was probably a mistake. The term 'continuation war' is very deceptive.
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Apr 23, 2017 01:13
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TheRat posted:kill Patton, gently caress Rommel, marry Zhukov This is the correct answer.
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Apr 23, 2017 01:15
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a tank is just a car with a big gun its not that cool
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Apr 23, 2017 01:23
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buglord posted:I went to the National WW2 Museum in New Orleans yesterday and it was pretty cool. They had veterans there that you could talk to. They also had a ton of weapons on display with a whole lot of uniforms. Coolest part was realizing just how gigantic a M4 Sherman was (I always pictured tanks in general smaller). Had a few gripes with the museum using so much modern Nat Geo/History Channel documentary material. And even in the museum setting, I think there was some oversimplification going on (no explanation as to why the U.S avoided war so long, Stalin and Allies being ~bffs~) i need to go there someday. i also want to go to the WW1 museum in Kansas city.
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Apr 23, 2017 01:26
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Panzeh posted:Finland in 1941 had a choice whether or not to join in the invasion in the USSR and chose to join in. It was probably a mistake. The term 'continuation war' is very deceptive. In the context of the Soviet invasion of Finland immediately prior to this choice and the annexed Finnish territory it seems pretty appropriate to call it a continuation war. They wanted their territory back and had an axe to grind with the Soviets.
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Apr 23, 2017 02:34
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buglord posted:I know you're joking but tanks are undeniably cool machines of death and I welcome all insanely detailed tank chat. Although I'm more curious about how tank life was. I've heard a variety of opinions and experiences here (although I'm sure type of tank and location mattered a ton). I watched the first half of Fury in the past week and the idea of "tank life sucks" kinda matches up with WaW. Where can I read more about the stuff? Preferably firsthand. it was better than bomber crew life, fighter pilot life, or submarine crew life. thaaaaat's about it in the list of military assignments tanks were better than. sure hope you enjoy being deaf, blind, overheated, and unimaginably bored.
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Apr 23, 2017 02:39
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Warbadger posted:In the context of the Soviet invasion of Finland immediately prior to this choice and the annexed Finnish territory it seems pretty appropriate to call it a continuation war. They wanted their territory back and had an axe to grind with the Soviets. So did Romania, but no one would term it in that way. The 'continuation war' is a frame that is very self-serving, considering the more than a year of peace between the events.
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Apr 23, 2017 03:10
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Panzeh posted:So did Romania, but no one would term it in that way. The 'continuation war' is a frame that is very self-serving, considering the more than a year of peace between the events. It's matter of objectives. Finland's objectives were narrowly tied to the Winter War - they recovered their lands and then stopped. Romania sent their armies on a field trip through Russia in a joint campaign with Nazi Germany aimed at destroying the USSR.
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Apr 23, 2017 04:37
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Highly hosed up
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Apr 23, 2017 05:48
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Finland morally compromised itself by being a cobelligerent with Nazi Germany in the same way the USA morally compromised itself by being a cobelligerent with the Soviet Union. But only one of those two sides won the war.
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Apr 23, 2017 05:53
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:Finland morally compromised itself by being a cobelligerent with Nazi Germany in the same way the USA morally compromised itself by being a cobelligerent with the Soviet Union. Well, the irony here is that the Soviets were a co belligerent with Nazi Germany when the USSR invaded Finland.
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Apr 23, 2017 15:37
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More of an involved question but what was the purpose of show trials and getting admissions of guilt during the great purge? It appeared like most people knew what was going on, but also they were powerless to stop it? Why go through the trouble of creating legitimacy? Soviet torture techniques during the purge were drawn out and time consuming. Also, how much of the purge was pathological distrust vs. a convenient excuse to purge any and all competition? Such a brutal decapitation of ones own military seems really stilly, especially in hindsight, but there had to be more behind if.
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Apr 23, 2017 15:45
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buglord posted:More of an involved question but what was the purpose of show trials and getting admissions of guilt during the great purge? It appeared like most people knew what was going on, but also they were powerless to stop it? Why go through the trouble of creating legitimacy? There is one additional variable in there. Mostly by coincidence, Joe McCarthy actually fingered some Soviet agents. Similarly, the purges of the Red Army were not totally insane, just mostly so. As a guy who'd claimed power through questionable means and was not particularly popular, Stalin was not wrong to suspect an awful lot of his officers would have been willing to coup his rear end given the opportunity. Ultimately, though, the goal of the show trials was to create the legitimacy Stalin felt he lacked, establishing himself as the Defender of the Nation Against All Who Would See It Ruined, beset by spies and traitors, the sole person the people could trust to have their best interests at heart, etc, etc, your basic self-aggrandizing strongman package. Later on in his career, Stalin did not bother with show trials, he just made suspected enemies disappear. But there at the start of his reign, he had an incredibly weak position, and he needed every scrap of legitimacy he could get his hands on. So while he was killing off his (perceived) enemies, he made a big show of "look how definitely in the right I am for doing this."
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Apr 23, 2017 16:38
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Bates posted:It's matter of objectives. Finland's objectives were narrowly tied to the Winter War - they recovered their lands and then stopped. Romania sent their armies on a field trip through Russia in a joint campaign with Nazi Germany aimed at destroying the USSR. Finland went past their pre-1940 borders and there was a lot of noise about Karelia. The difference between the Finns and Romanians in this regard is that Antonescu realized that for him to keep his gains, Hitler had to win so he went all in.
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Apr 23, 2017 17:03
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buglord posted:I know you're joking but tanks are undeniably cool machines of death and I welcome all insanely detailed tank chat.  , but US tank destroyer chat was the running gag in the milhist thread because even milhist spergs thought ten page long rounds of "tank destroyers were good" "no actually they were bad" "no actually it was just every single tank destroyer officer who were bad" were too spergy
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Apr 23, 2017 19:57
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Ron Jeremy posted:It's been a while but from what I remember it was "soviets suffered a great deal" "Stalin murdered his own men" "heroic western allies came to the soviets rescue" "soviets because bloodthirsty in revenge" I'm just gonna return to this and say that the narrative for the Eastern Front in World at War was 'Soviets got loving mauled but thanks to their tenacity and german hubris they were able to weather the storm and turn the tide'. No armed force in that series got it's dick sucked as much as the Red Army. You know what, just watch this and tell me when the 'Western allies had to gallantly rescue the poor Soviet Union' plot kicks in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEhrnp5SoVg
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Apr 23, 2017 20:31
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Has anyone watched Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States?
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Apr 24, 2017 12:41
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Ron Jeremy posted:Considering how in the dark Truman was about the bomb before he took office, you can sort of say the bombs just appeared in front of him. The context is harder. Truman didn't have a lot of foreign policy experience. He was dismissed as a "haberdasher" who had been installed by the Missouri democratic machine. An accidental president. Thrust into the role, he absolutely had to weigh post war aims when considering to drop the bomb. First among them was the position of the Soviet Union compared to the allies. Churchill was vehemently anti-communist. Many of the American generals were too. Hell, many of the Nazis were wondering why were bothering to fight them when we really should be joining forces to beat the Soviets. The casualty estimates that he received for operation downfall were also very high, and rightfully so. Postwar analysis of japanese war documents showed that the japanese had correctly guessed our landing sites and general invasion plans. They also had stockpiled lots of fuel and kamikaze planes specifically to defend japan itself. The decision to drop the bombs was not an easy one, even when looking back with all the knowledge we have now.
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Apr 24, 2017 18:09
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Just gonna mention my maternal grandfather (though not my blood, my grandma remarried when my mom was still young) who had basically the best WW2 experience. He was sent to Yale to learn Japanese (I have one of his textbooks from the time which is really cool, and he remembered a surprising amount), and the only "action" he ever had to take was interrogating some Japanese sailors (I think from a submarine?) who had surrendered off the Pacific coast after the war ended. He says they talked with the Japanese soldiers about food and women and that they were relieved the war had ended. Unfortunately my paternal grandfather was not so lucky and was sent to Guadalcanal and ended up with PTSD. He very rarely talked about the war, though my dad said there was one time he mentioned having to play dead among the corpses of some fellow soldiers.
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Apr 24, 2017 19:47
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Panzeh posted:Finland went past their pre-1940 borders and there was a lot of noise about Karelia. The difference between the Finns and Romanians in this regard is that Antonescu realized that for him to keep his gains, Hitler had to win so he went all in. The Finnish government was somewhere around 1942 and 1943 making a lot of plans for the post-war economic exploitation of Eastern Karelia, which had never been part of Finland. Pragmatically speaking, the Winter War was maybe avoidable through better diplomacy in the late 1930's because the fundamental issue for the Soviets and Stalin wasn't that they wanted Finland but the security of Leningrad. The Continuation War or some derivative of it would have probably happened anyway precisely due to the whole Leningrad issue.
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Apr 25, 2017 08:04
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DeadFatDuckFat posted:The casualty estimates that he received for operation downfall were also very high, and rightfully so. Postwar analysis of japanese war documents showed that the japanese had correctly guessed our landing sites and general invasion plans. They also had stockpiled lots of fuel and kamikaze planes specifically to defend japan itself. The decision to drop the bombs was not an easy one, even when looking back with all the knowledge we have now. Several problems here - The Japanese may have prepared for invasion, but their material situation was incredibly dire. Their fuel stockpiles were so low that they couldn't fly interception missions against bombers, their kamikaze fleet was forced to remain stationary at its air strips with just enough fuel for the last strike. American planners knew that, and they also knew where Japanese air strips were located. They would have been able to pick off most of the Japanese air power with impunity, and they also had an elaborate scheme of of protected picket boats (called something dramatic like Iron Veil IIRC) that would distract the remaining planes, and force their pilots to launch too soon, as well as make it harder for them to find actually valuable targets and force them to run through a zone of overwhelming Allied air superiority. All in all, only very few losses due to air power would have likely occurred if the complex operations to foil the Japanese were put into action. - By far the most potent remaining fighting formations of the Japanese army were located in China and Manchuria, and even those folded immediately when pressed. One can only imagine how the improvised divisions of Home Islands defense would do with their much worse equipment and training. Last ditch civil militias were virtually unarmed, there were cases of recruits pillaging muskets from museums or being given ordinary tools like chisels for weapons. - Strategic mobility of the IJA was zero. A breached portion of the front would have been a permanent loss to the Japanese with no hope of a counter attack. steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Apr 25, 2017 |
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Apr 25, 2017 08:14
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It's weird how all these "would have collapsed" units were never encountered in the field. Those fuckers allways fought to the last (then killed themselves after slaughtering the prisoners). Also not a lot of good that the Japanese home units were crap, because they tended to kill themselves so either way they were dead.
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Apr 25, 2017 12:39
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504 posted:It's weird how all these "would have collapsed" units were never encountered in the field. Those fuckers allways fought to the last (then killed themselves after slaughtering the prisoners). The Soviets captured hundreds of thousands of Japanese veteran soldiers in just a couple of weeks.
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Apr 25, 2017 12:49
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504 posted:It's weird how all these "would have collapsed" units were never encountered in the field. Those fuckers allways fought to the last (then killed themselves after slaughtering the prisoners). The whole "they will always commit suicide" thing was dumb orientalism fueled by the fact that the US side of the pacific war was almost entirely on tiny islands where there was literally no hope of escaping. A lot of the suicides in Okinawa had more to do with the fact that Okinawans were seen as subhumans by the mainland Japanese. The Japanese surrendered plenty and were just as human as the rest, there's still japanese POW journals. It's not even entirely clear that the monarchy was, at that point, even something most Japanese were willing to fight to keep at all, besides the aristocrats who had the final power to actually put an end to the war.
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Apr 25, 2017 13:10
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steinrokkan posted:Several problems here Ah. It's been awhile since I read Hell to Pay so maybe I'm misremembering the fuel thing. Or maybe giangreco was just reading too much into his evidence.
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Apr 25, 2017 16:09
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steinrokkan posted:The Soviets captured hundreds of thousands of Japanese veteran soldiers in just a couple of weeks. The Soviets had a massive strategic advantage in mobility especially considering the flat terrain of Manchuria, and those troops had comparatively little reason to fight for every inch of soil compared (compared their homeland). Ultimately, we don't know in the end, but August Storm is not the best comparison. The invasion of the Home Islands might have looked a lot more similar to Okinawa. Obviously the US would win, and little damage would come from the air but it very well might have been a long grueling fight with high numbers of civilian causalities. The US would be backing both the government and the population into a corner, and that usually doesn't work very well. That said, I think the most troubling element for the US would be if such an event happened wouldn't be the losses, but the fact that the Soviets would be relatively uncontested elsewhere. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Apr 25, 2017 |
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Apr 25, 2017 17:51
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