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Here's a relevant interview with one of the few remaining WW2 fighter pilots. Of particular relevance is the "flakhaus" where mostly bomber crews were sent for R&R, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng0hPejhBl8 I should be so lucky to be so coherent at 101.
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Mar 25, 2024 07:15
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How are you legally supposed to raise Wehrmacht units from occupied territory that is not officially incorporated into the boundaries of the Reich? You can't. So you're going to have to use the informal framework of the SS, which has its own ridiculous parallel army structure that operates alongside of the Wehrmact, because everything is stupid in Nazi Germany. So they started out in 1939 with this pure German SS mostly political organization and by '44 there are all these "Waffen SS" units that are basically a United Nations of Central Europe that were raised from different countries that were under Nazi control. You've gotta remember that the Nazis were anti-communists just as much as they were anti-semites. There were all kinds of young European males that were down to fight a crusade against communism because the big bad USSR was coming for their homes. These were the guys who signed up for those "SS" units. Teriyaki Hairpiece fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Mar 25, 2024 |
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Mar 25, 2024 07:26
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It's honestly astounding that the "Every important guy in Hitler's inner circle gets their own little army they get to raise up and do stuff with" wasn't a very efficient model of running a military. Even more surprising that culling entire groups when one of the little guys fell out of favor also hindered their efforts.
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Mar 25, 2024 09:35
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Cojawfee posted:It's honestly astounding that the "Every important guy in Hitler's inner circle gets their own little army they get to raise up and do stuff with" wasn't a very efficient model of running a military. Even more surprising that culling entire groups when one of the little guys fell out of favor also hindered their efforts. Yeah, there's a reason why you have to laugh at any one that says "well Germany could've won if x y and z". Due to structural issues like you mentioned and the reality of fighting, Germany was already heading down the road to defeat in 1941 and had basically sealed their fate by 1943.
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Mar 25, 2024 13:52
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Cojawfee posted:It's honestly astounding that the "Every important guy in Hitler's inner circle gets their own little army they get to raise up and do stuff with" wasn't a very efficient model of running a military. Even more surprising that culling entire groups when one of the little guys fell out of favor also hindered their efforts. What, you don't think that the Air Force should have its own army which in turn needs its own tanks? How are you supposed to defend your And in order to have the best possible equipment for this specific task, it should probably do its own procurement as well.
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Mar 25, 2024 14:46
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6xLMUifbxQ German production was it's own worse enemy. Whoever said that Germans weren't great engineers, they were just perfectionist was spot on.
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Mar 25, 2024 18:10
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Yea, in all my study of Nazi Germany in university comes down to one point, the Nazis were really stupid, and everything they did was done for stupid reasons". That Star Trek episode where they say "the Nazis were the most efficient government in human history" really poisoned people because that was far, far from the truth. Not to mention the entire economic recovery was based on credit that they planned to pay off by plundering Europe.
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Mar 25, 2024 18:10
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twistedmentat posted:One of the funny things about Nazis is they idolized british high culture and tried to emulate them, including having fox hunts. I'm imagining the goons that made up the Nazi inner circle trying to chase a fox through the woods with a very poor showing of horsemanship. Probably didn't even have the right kind of waistcoat, the absolute cads.
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Mar 25, 2024 18:47
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Jerusalem posted:Oh yeah, that dude taking shots at the probably fatally wounded but still living German soldier was incredibly hosed up. I apologize for being pedantic but the movie nerd and milhist in me is going to get the best of me - for that scene in Saving Private Ryan they're speaking Czech iirc, not Polish. Also to be clear there were no SS units in the Omaha vicinity on Dday. I believe most of the Waffen SS units were held in reserve, and even then, most were deployed to the Caen sector facing the British. Off the top of my head the formations facing the Americans, specifically at Omaha, were a mix of Ost Battalions and elements of the 716th infantry division. These were not exactly well-trained or equipped formations - most were pressed into service (often against their will if from the occupied territories) or were very young or old recruits. Good enough to man static fortifications but not much else.
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Mar 25, 2024 19:28
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Thanks for the correction re: the language, though to also be pedantic I wasn't saying the guys in SPR were SS, just that the moment in BoB reminded me of that scene!
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Mar 25, 2024 20:45
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The SPR is sad because they probably were just wanting to give up because they didn't believe in what they were being forced to fight in. But now that BoB scene seems kind of depressing if they really could have just been Polish dudes who didn't know what they were signing up for or were conscripted into.
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Mar 25, 2024 21:34
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Jerusalem posted:Thanks for the correction re: the language, though to also be pedantic I wasn't saying the guys in SPR were SS, just that the moment in BoB reminded me of that scene! No worries! I just wanted to emphasis that what SPR was trying to show was that most of the defenders manning the Atlantic wall were forced conscripts who really didn’t want to be there. Which to your point is similar to the scene in BoB.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:16
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jisforjosh posted:Yeah, there's a reason why you have to laugh at any one that says "well Germany could've won if x y and z". Due to structural issues like you mentioned and the reality of fighting, Germany was already heading down the road to defeat in 1941 and had basically sealed their fate by 1943.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:54
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Anyone who says "Germany would of won the war if they did X or y" should be met with "but they didn't". Also probably followed up with "And why do you want germany to win the war?" Unless their answer is they're working on a new Wolfenstien game, they should be suspect. Quinton Reviews has a good video about Bad Nazi docs and talks about how a lot of the people in them are creepily excited about Nazis and Nazi stuff. LIke one about Hunting Hitler, looking into rumors of Hitler escaping to South America, and this one guy in it goes to a guy who actually is German and was in the Hitler Youth (because you had to be) and he's all "Nazis are super cool right? Did you wear a uniform and seig heil the swastika? It was real cool right?" and then he's super excited when they find a nazi coin somewhere. The best part of that video is pointing out the picture of Herr Wulf, who was said to be Hitler posing as a Gardener, was actually a picture of an elderly MOE HOWARD. They do all this photoshop bullshit to try to show a very Jewish and famous American was actually HITLER.
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Mar 26, 2024 02:26
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Darth Brooks posted:Whoever said that Germans weren't great engineers, they were just perfectionist was spot on. I can't remember the exact lifespan and it may be apocryphal but the USSR found that the average combat lifespan of a T34 was measured days or weeks so just pump them out and don't focus on perfecting manufacturing.
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Mar 26, 2024 05:20
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^ Right. The scene in the movie Fury is laughable because Brad Pitt and his friends all decide to stay and defend their stricken Sherman because the old girl has been with them so long. No loving way it was. Even without the pedantic nerdery of knowing their specific Sherman was a later war model, and that the US just abandoned its tanks in Africa rather than bring them to Europe, there's no way tank crews were getting that romantic about a vehicle that they can ditch and just get a replacement, especially when they know the war is almost over. Veteran tank crews were considered far more valuable than their actual tank, which was gonna break down or get smashed up pretty quickly in an active campaign.
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Mar 26, 2024 13:12
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jisforjosh posted:I can't remember the exact lifespan and it may be apocryphal but the USSR found that the average combat lifespan of a T34 was measured days or weeks so just pump them out and don't focus on perfecting manufacturing. Yeah, that's touched on in the Kursk video above. The Soviets realized that the average tank, no matter how good, will only last for a few months of deployment, and only days if not hours of active combat. So they quite correctly realized that there was absolutely no point in e.g. building their engines to last for several years. Similarly, where the Germans constantly hosed with their designs trying to upgrade every single aspect, to the point of loving with individual parts of singular tanks while they were being produced. Meanwhile the Soviets kinda did the opposite and simplified where they could, reducing the number of unique parts and total parts used. The end result may have been somewhat worse, but it also meant that they almost halved the cost of their main tank design over the course of the war.
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Mar 26, 2024 13:13
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Mr. Grapes! posted:The scene in the movie Fury is laughable because Brad Pitt and his friends all decide to stay and defend their stricken Sherman because the old girl has been with them so long. No loving way it was. I'm pretty sure they explicitly say "we're the only thing between the division's rear lines and a battalion of SS so we need to stay and fight."
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Mar 26, 2024 15:02
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Perestroika posted:What, you don't think that the Air Force should have its own army which in turn needs its own tanks? How are you supposed to defend your *coughs slightly at the US Navy having its own Army (yes yes separate branch but that's its origin) which in turn has its own Air Force*
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Mar 26, 2024 15:16
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feedmegin posted:*coughs slightly at the US Navy having its own Army (yes yes separate branch but that's its origin) which in turn has its own Air Force* And they routinely have the shittiest equipment. They had Lewis guns in WWII.
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Mar 26, 2024 16:18
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Mr. Grapes! posted:^ Right. Did you even watch that movie?
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Mar 26, 2024 17:08
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Bastogne still stands out to this day as a great episode of BoB, and I think what makes it work so well is a variety of things that have all been built up through the context of the previous 5 episodes. To date we've seen the men of Easy Company dropped into battle, go through intense firefights and either succeed and quickly move on or fail and have to pull back, but they've mostly been in motion the entire time. Last episode showed the (relative) quiet before the storm but Bastogne showcases them entrenched into a position where their best case scenario is holding onto the ground they have, and the worst case is that retreat is all but impossible due to the now infamous "bulge" in the frontline that puts them effectively surrounded. It's clever to make Eugene "Doc" Roe the primary POV character, a medic who is always in the thick of action but doesn't fight himself, who has SOME leeway to move off the line into the town on desperate supply runs where he gets to see the aftermath of the battles and the injuries he tends to. It means we're only given glimpses of the fighting between Easy and the Germans, with Doc as the audience stand-in waiting to see if his services are needed, worried for men he knows who are out in the white void where a slip into a hole might find you in an enemy foxhole, a laugh or a joke might suddenly get a confused German response from only a few feet away, and where the cold is so all-pervasive that even officers find themselves tempted to let discipline lapse and light a small fire for warmth despite the danger of giving away their position. Doc is able to move through the line, visiting briefly with the other characters, giving us a sense of how things are going, noting worrying signs, while also struggling not to fall apart himself as the sheer waste and horror of the war is continually heaped on him. Initial visits to the town show him perturbed by the stacked frozen corpses of the soldiers who couldn't be saved, but as the episode progresses and the stacks grow higher he stops even appearing to notice them. The brief friendship he strikes up with the nurse Renee could easily have felt a little hamfisted, especially when she inevitably gets killed in a bombing run so Doc can tear up her bandana as a bandage as a "powerful symbolic gestureTM", but it's brief enough that it works, especially with the added wrinkle that Doc speaks French thanks to his Cajun heritage and Renee is clearly thrilled to meet an American soldier who can actually talk to her in her own language. Female characters are one of BoB's weak points, which isn't particularly surprising, but I could have done without the scenes of her - the head nurse who has seen hundreds of men die - troubled and touched by Doc's vulnerability and rage to losing a patient. We see some more of Buck's ongoing disintegration, with added context that his girlfriend (fiance?) has sent him a Dear John letter which probably has him pondering even more what the hell the point of him doing all this is. We get an almost cruel portent of things to come with Doc warning Toye that he could lose a foot if he doesn't properly treat his trenchfoot. Lieutenant Dike is again done no favors, his character seemingly almost entirely without merit as he comes and goes without warning, flat out abandoning a patrol to march back without a word to "report to Battalion" a firefight on the front, seen lambasting his aide for not being by his side at all times, and getting lost trying to find his own foxhole. Winters is clearly well aware of the problems Easy is facing, not exactly helped by Colonel Sink showing up for a status report, hearing all the things that they're lacking and simply responding that they need to hold the line no matter what. Edit: I mixed characters up, it was Lieutenant Peacock who runs off from the engagement with the Germans apparently! We get to see the men's pleased reactions to the famous "Nuts" reply to the German offer to the Allies to give up the fight in Bastogne, and on paper the climax of the episode is an anti-climax, as we simply get a text card explaining that Patton broke the German lines to "rescue" the 101st, but that no 101st soldier ever agreed that they needed rescuing. It works in execution though, because what we're being shown is the resilience of the men/company as a whole. Individuals are suffering, some are falling apart or barely keeping it together, but almost all of them are still unified in the notion that this is their role in the war and they mean to see it through. Toye represents this well when he savagely proclaims he will NOT be pulled off the line despite his trenchfoot. It reminds me of an earlier episode where it was noted that in battle you can only rely on yourself and the soldier next to you. What we see a lot of in this episode is that for at least some of the soldiers, and perhaps many, by this point in the war they weren't even so much worried about themselves as they were about being reliable for the soldier next to them. They might be falling apart or suffering, but they weren't going to let down the man next to them, and so on down the line. Doc is constantly concerned for and looking out for the only other medic they have, who similarly worries about him or helps comfort a private whose best friend died on patrol and whose body couldn't be retrieved. Toye won't be pulled off, Martin is loathe to pull out of an engagement when the previous is injured, and (sensibly) made sure Doc stayed behind until needed to avoid losing one of their only valued medics. The series is called Band of Brothers, and over the first six episodes the series does a remarkable job of showing the growing strength of the bond between them all, from the original Toccoa men through the various replacements. They share stories, family histories, fantasies and hopes. They make bonds over what to do for the other's family should one die. They look out for and support each other, even as some of them near breaking point. Heffron - who is feeling the pressure - even lambasts Doc for not calling him "Babe" like the rest of the men, noting that "Doc" only ever refers to people by their actual name, and is thrilled during a conversation late in the episode where Doc without even thinking about it finally calls him by his nickname. In my head I always tie together this episode and the next two, because they represent Easy Company at probably their most stretched and vulnerable (culminating in Winters' decision to lie about "the last patrol"). But it's always darkest before the dawn, and even as simple a series throughline as this IS a throughline, and one that works remarkably well in execution for BoB. It makes the scattershot assembly of Masters of the Air stand out all the more, because 20+ years ago the first in this "trilogy" of shows managed to get it so right and provide a simple and effective blueprint. It makes all the flaws of Masters of the Air stand out all the more, and despite all the development hell and changes in production stories I've heard, it remains a baffling result when what to do was RIGHT THERE to be seen. The success of Band of Brothers is why The Pacific and then Masters of the Air were even made in the first place! Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Mar 27, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 17:42
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Dike running off to "call for help" happens in Ep7 The Breaking Point, not Ep6 Bastogne.
Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Mar 26, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 17:47
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Arc Hammer posted:Dyke running off to "call for help" happens in Ep7 The Breaking Point, not Ep6 Bastogne. I literally just watched the episode and during the fight where the guy is shot and Martin and the guy's friend can't get to his body, Dike comes striding past Doc who asks what is happening, and Dike says something like,"We engaged the enemy, I have to go report to Battalion" while the rest of the men are pinned down trying to figure out whether they can hold in place and keeping fighting till they can retrieve the shot soldier, or if they'll have to pull back and leave him behind. Maybe he does the same thing in The Breaking Point too? I haven't rewatched that yet. The point is, Dike is basically shown in the worst light possible.
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Mar 26, 2024 17:50
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Might be he did it twice, then. I've always remembered it in Ep7 because of Luz's reaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNpVKXLR2m4 EDIT: Just checked, it was Peacock leading the patrol in Bastogne, not Dike. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFSF9qvB_1o Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Mar 26, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 17:53
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Yep, looks like he does it twice, I guess to hammer home the point though I think it's a little redundant. Here's the scene from Bastogne: https://i.imgur.com/O6TUc11.mp4 "We're pulling back" he says, even though he gave no order and didn't communicate this in any way to the others, he just... left! Again, from my understanding, Dike was really done dirty by the portrayal in the series, apparently in a similar fashion to Blithe where Ambrose wrote based on the recollections/perceptions of the Easy Company men which were either wrong or heavily weighted by personal factors.
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Mar 26, 2024 18:03
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Arc Hammer posted:Just checked, it was Peacock leading the patrol in Bastogne, not Dike. Oh wow, I literally had no idea it was a different guy! Thanks!  Edit: And just realized it was Toye who had the trenchfoot too, man I'm batting... I don't know what the right baseball term is... I'm batting real not good today!
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Mar 26, 2024 18:05
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Jerusalem posted:Oh wow, I literally had no idea it was a different guy! Thanks! You don't know baseball? You sound like a German spy.
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Mar 26, 2024 18:08
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Cojawfee posted:You don't know baseball? You sound like a German spy. Nein nein I love America, #1 #1, uhh... Mickey Mouse! I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy! I got to see Eddie Izzard doing stand-up once and he had a great bit about how you always see a frightened German soldier using broken English to try and stay alive, and he wishes we could see a film where an American is captured and, fearing execution, he stumbles through broken bits of misunderstood German pop culture touchstones to try and endear himself to his captors. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Mar 26, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 18:11
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It's easy to get the LTs mixed up when there's so many of them. - Sobel gets reassigned - Meehan's plane explodes - Winters takes a ricochet to the foot - Brewer (aka"General Patton") gets shot at Neunen - Buck gets shot in the rear end - Nixon takes a shot to the helmet - Heyliger gets shot by a sentry - Welsh takes shrapnel at Bastogne - Dike likely took a shoulder wound at Foy - Peacock took a trip home for a propaganda tour - Shames and Foley don't really do much but Foley is notable for being played by a young Jamie Bamber and Shames yells a lot - Speirs takes over the company - Lipton gets a battlefield commission from topkick to LT - Jones was only with the company briefly before getting transferred (and dying following surgery complications from a car collision) And those are just the ones who appear in the series I'm sure I've missed a few. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Mar 26, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 18:27
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Jerusalem posted:Yep, looks like he does it twice, I guess to hammer home the point though I think it's a little redundant. Here's the scene from Bastogne: Holy moly that single shot of him walking out of the snowy fog is visually so much more impactful than anything we got out of Masters of the Air. Also yea Dike got a raw deal in BoB this video shows the assault on Foy and Dike gets shot halfway through the assault. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5K_iPpqw5E
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Mar 26, 2024 19:48
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How realistic are the medical treatments portrayed in BoB? It feels a little odd for someone to sustain a major wound with a ton of bleeding, and then a shallow bandage on top of several layers of clothes is supposed to help them. I know that this is the best you can do in the field of battle, but that bandage sometimes felt a bit too effective.
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Mar 26, 2024 19:55
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Jerusalem posted:Yep, looks like he does it twice, I guess to hammer home the point though I think it's a little redundant. Here's the scene from Bastogne: Forest's haunted! But sir? Forest's haunted! Oasx posted:How realistic are the medical treatments portrayed in BoB? It feels a little odd for someone to sustain a major wound with a ton of bleeding, and then a shallow bandage on top of several layers of clothes is supposed to help them. Some of that powder they put on the wounds is a coagulant, to stem the bleeding.
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Mar 26, 2024 20:01
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Oasx posted:How realistic are the medical treatments portrayed in BoB? It feels a little odd for someone to sustain a major wound with a ton of bleeding, and then a shallow bandage on top of several layers of clothes is supposed to help them. So battlefield trauma, can be roughly categorised in 3 types. poo poo that will kill you instantly or in the next 10 minutes. poo poo that will kill you in an hour. poo poo that will kill you in days, because of infections and what not. So battlefield trump management, consists of treating the latter two categories. So any limbs wound, will get a tourniquet applied. And after that the wound is bandaged, also to prevent dirt from entering the wound. The powder they put in the wounds in ww2, was sulfa powder, as an antiseptic/antibacterial treatment. And then evacuation up the chain, for further and more advanced treatment. If the bandage is effective, it is because the wound was in 2 of the latter categories.
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Mar 26, 2024 21:03
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skooma512 posted:Forest's haunted! That powder is sulfa powder, an antibiotic. Anti coagulation powders were first patented in 1989.
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Mar 26, 2024 21:06
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vuk83 posted:That powder is sulfa powder, an antibiotic. Gotcha, my bad
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Mar 26, 2024 21:11
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skooma512 posted:Forest's haunted! Uhh that was sulfa not quik clot.
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Mar 26, 2024 21:11
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Arc Hammer posted:It's easy to get the LTs mixed up when there's so many of them. Plus there’s a line in The Last Patrol about “20 Louies since D-Day” or something like that when talking about Lt. baby Hanks.
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Mar 26, 2024 21:49
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Cojawfee posted:It's honestly astounding that the "Every important guy in Hitler's inner circle gets their own little army they get to raise up and do stuff with" wasn't a very efficient model of running a military. Even more surprising that culling entire groups when one of the little guys fell out of favor also hindered their efforts. Wait until you hear about the 3 entirely parallel school systems they set up to ideologically train administrators and public servants. Every single thing about nazi Germany was a goddamn clown show through and through.
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Mar 26, 2024 22:28
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Orange Devil posted:Wait until you hear about the 3 entirely parallel school systems they set up to ideologically train administrators and public servants. Is there a book that covers this? Just a big ol’ myth-busting collection of nazi dysfunction and stupidity. (As long as I’m making a wish list, it’d ideally include descriptions of the terrible uniforms that the goon in a history thread talks about.)
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Mar 27, 2024 01:30
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