WW2 thread

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > WW2 thread

MakaVillian: Aug 16, 2003; Well, in Whoville they say - that his tiny hands grew three sizes that day.

Colonel Cancer posted:

It's kinda crazy that us first adopted nazi scientists and then their entire political philosophy

Hail Hydra

Edit: WWII is cool to learn about : fighting against literal evil, cool technological and battlefield innovations. Not like that stupid and pointless WWI.

MakaVillian fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Jul 17, 2020

# ¿ Jul 17, 2020 16:39

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 09:58

MakaVillian: Aug 16, 2003; Well, in Whoville they say - that his tiny hands grew three sizes that day.

buglord posted:

BBC/Thames' The World at War is a 26 episode documentary series from 1973 which is something I think anyone who is interested in WW2 must watch. As you can guess from the release year, it got a handful of things wrong for a variety of reasons, such as proximity to the war years, the cold war, latent sinophobia/japanphobia, classified documents not being released yet. Despite all that, it shines because of the metric ton of footage and firsthand interviews they got from participants/victims of the war. They got plenty of high profile people on there before they died, such as one of the japanese generals who lead the attack on pearl harbor, or admiral d�nitz, or hitler's valets and bodyguards. They also get a fair amount of folks like russian housewives or berliners explaining how they attempted to ignore the holocaust at the time. Again, because of the time this was made the accuracy isn't stellar, but there's no denying the value of the war footage or seeing the interviews from the people who were actually there. You really need to watch it by any means possible.

I know nobody asked for effortposts but I just had to share~

My grandpa had these videos and they were indeed rad as heck.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2020 00:43

MakaVillian: Aug 16, 2003; Well, in Whoville they say - that his tiny hands grew three sizes that day.

Animal-Mother posted:

soundtrack for this thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg0Tmydj29M

Still hum this to myself occasionally

# ¿ Jul 18, 2020 02:14

MakaVillian: Aug 16, 2003; Well, in Whoville they say - that his tiny hands grew three sizes that day.

Also why you should never buy a German car

# ¿ Jul 18, 2020 19:54

MakaVillian: Aug 16, 2003; Well, in Whoville they say - that his tiny hands grew three sizes that day.

Bleusilences posted:

I always wonder why the Germans didn't stop to France when they saw that they couldn't break into Britain.

The answer seems to be Genocide, and debts.

quick edit: Also, and that I already knew, Nazis are stupid and prideful.

By the time they defeated France, Hitler was 100% convinced that Germany was going to fulfill what he saw as their destiny and gave himself about 95% of the credit for their success.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2020 21:49

MakaVillian: Aug 16, 2003; Well, in Whoville they say - that his tiny hands grew three sizes that day.

twistedmentat posted:

The quick fall of France was more about the French not wanting to go through the horrors of WW1 again, rather than losing another entire generation to war.

Oh absolutely French morale was crushed after the success of the German pincer through the Ardennes (except briefly in early June). I was talking about how Hitler saw the German successes going back to Munich and gave himself way too much credit for the fall of France.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2020 22:18

MakaVillian: Aug 16, 2003; Well, in Whoville they say - that his tiny hands grew three sizes that day.

twistedmentat posted:

The Japanese Government were totally willing to let their entire population die to fend off an American invasion. Primary sources directly from the high command confirm this. You can find many civilian politicians saying "this war is hosed up, we need to stop now, honor and all that poo poo be damned" but by 1945 there was zero civilian control over the Japanese government, so that is pretty meaningless. And to use it to try to claim the Japanese were begging to surrender is incredibly historically dishonest.

Also, from Saipan and other Islands with Japanese civilians, it was already shown that many were ready to kill themselves rather than face what they believed would be a fate worse than death if the Americans took the Island. And even if they weren't ready to fling themselves into the sea, the Japanese Army was more than willing to make the decision for them.

Remember, people living in Japan at that time had never known a society that was not tied up in all kinds of macho bullshit claimed to be Bushido, the 40k motto"It is better to die for the Emperor than to live for yourself" is incredibly true. People knew no other life but complete and utter service to the Emperor and his role as Divine head of state. Reading some stuff written by surviving WW2 Japanese soldiers shows a kind of insane devotion that cannot be matched, even by the most fanatical Waffen-SS trooper or Hitler Youth. They knew they could not defeat the American's by direct conflict, but they believed that the Americans were soft and if you killed enough of their soldiers, they'd sign a peace with the Japanese. Though the Americans felt that the Japanese could not compete with strapping American soldiers, and went into most of their battles over confident.

I am not saying that dropping two bombs on Japan was good or bad, but a lot of arguments I see against it seem to completely ignore the facts surrounding how Japan was organized, and the state of mind of its population. The fact that Operation Olympic never happened means that we will never know of the multi million causalities projected may have happened, but as I said above, what happened on islands the Americans had taken was a hearld of things to come. They originally wanted to drop it on Kyoto because it was in a valley which would make the bomb much more effective, but was overruled because it was the cultural and spiritual heart of Japan and by then they were already drawing up plans for post war Japan and they knew they needed the Emperor to remain there to prevent a new fascist, or worse, communist, regime to take over. That is often cited as an example of why the decision to drop it was a practical one, but i mean, why not drop it on an military target , or even a uninhabited place?

Also, the dropping of both bombs still pales in comparison to the causalities the Japanese inflicted on China. It's probably as bad as the civilian casualties in Barbarossa.

I did an undergrad paper on the bombings and I came to the conclusion after reading the literature that it saved a significant number of lives for the reasons you point out. I think there is a valid debate on whether the US needed to bomb 2 large cities, rather than one city and another strictly military target or uninhibited area. Operation Downfall would've resulted in horrific casualties so I think, as awful as the bombs were, they saved a lot of lives.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2020 02:24

MakaVillian: Aug 16, 2003; Well, in Whoville they say - that his tiny hands grew three sizes that day.

twistedmentat posted:

Yea, but they were saving planes for Barbarossa even then. The Germans never committed their full power against Britain, becuase he was more focused on the USSR.

Wells died in 1946.

Yeah, Hitler really only wanted to have Britain capitulate to Germany in order to show German dominance, I don't think he had any real desire to occupy it.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2020 19:41

MakaVillian: Aug 16, 2003; Well, in Whoville they say - that his tiny hands grew three sizes that day.

Kevin DuBrow posted:

One thing I remember Hanks saying is that after the fall of France, no one believed that Germany could possibly be stopped until the Battle of Stalingrad. Exactly how many believed that I'm not sure, but by the Battle of Stalingrad the U.S. had officially declared war on the Axis powers and of course the USSR had joined the Allies. Both Churchill and Stalin were assured that Germany would eventually lose.

Well the US was still an unknown quantity militarily, especially in Europe. The only major US land victory was on Wake Island and there was still the assumption that the Japanese were a second-tier army (because racism). As well the Germans summer offensive was still fairly successful up until Stalingrad.

With the benefit of hindsight we can see that obviously the entrance of the US in the war and the slowly stiffening USSR resistance made a German victory highly unlikely, however at the time there was still a lot of uncertainty and fear among the Allies.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2020 22:55

MakaVillian: Aug 16, 2003; Well, in Whoville they say - that his tiny hands grew three sizes that day.

Julius CSAR posted:

Isnt that guy basically Joe Rogan but for tanks and roman legions

No??

# ¿ Jul 22, 2020 01:16

MakaVillian: Aug 16, 2003; Well, in Whoville they say - that his tiny hands grew three sizes that day.

Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:

The UK wasn't actually doing that bad after Dunkirk. They had lost the best of their army in Europe and all of its equipment and in no way could they resist an invasion of the island of Britain, but that wasn't going to happen. The Navy made it impossible. They had all the people and resources of India, Canada, Australia, huge swathes of Africa, all the oil in the Middle East, a blank check from the USA, and supposedly the moral high ground. Also it wasn't a democratic society. Churchill didn't get elected PM. There was a massive blanket of propaganda and oppressive laws against dissent. Every aspect of society was systemized and militarized. A groundswell of public opinion would have had to have been giant indeed.

The war in the Atlantic was pretty dire for the British Isles in 40 and 41 but yeah, there's no realistic way the Germans could've threatened Britain militarily.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2020 05:10

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 09:58

MakaVillian: Aug 16, 2003; Well, in Whoville they say - that his tiny hands grew three sizes that day.

buglord posted:

Wait so fiscal policy by the Germans was based on �when we win the war against the soviets/uk�?
If so that�s wild lol

An elegant example of the Nazi's arrogance, terrible strategic planning and hubris.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2020 03:53

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > WW2 thread