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If the Iraq war had ended in a month or two, was Iran probably going to be the next domino to fall?
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Sep 11, 2011 04:48
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Boiled Water posted:How in your wildest of dreams have you imagined this to happen? And which war in Iraq is it? The Iranian gov't is an even bigger boogyman to the US than Hussein. Someone once speculated to me that one of the secondary goals of having a bunch of American forces on the Iran-Iraq border, ready to push into that country. Whether or not this was actually planned to happen or not, I have no idea.
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Sep 11, 2011 18:05
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Nenonen posted:The biggest worry already in 1991 with regards to invading Iraq was that the Iranian-backed Shias would get too much power, so I would say that speculation was mistaken. I meant the current Iraq war.
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Sep 11, 2011 18:15
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It makes sense that invading a flat, weakened, diplomatically-isolated country would be a lot easier than sending troops into Iran.
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Sep 11, 2011 18:32
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Saint Celestine posted:How are those F-14s still operational? I would imagine just like those 50s Fords in Cuba.
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Sep 11, 2011 23:59
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Saint Celestine posted:Yeah, but an F-14, I assume, is way more complex then a car, and its not like the US is giving them parts and updates. I guess they managed to learn how to maintain them on their own? I would assume they would cannibalize some of the Tomcats for parts, get others through the black market, and such.
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Sep 12, 2011 00:53
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I wish Israel would've been made from a chunk of post-WW2 Germany, as some wanted.
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Sep 12, 2011 20:10
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Did French troops in WW1 serve the entire war or did they get to leave the military after a year or so?
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Sep 14, 2011 02:31
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Nenonen posted:I don't think they (or privates in most conscription armies in general) could leave without a good reason - and the need for manpower was so great that it'd have to be a loving perfect excuse for them to let a healthy, experienced poilu to just walk away. It was the homeland that was at stake. As bewbies said, even if they only spent a month or so on the front lines, I'm shocked that the French didn't mutiny before the war ended. If one had to spend four years getting shelled and running into machine gun fire.....
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Sep 14, 2011 05:07
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What leverage does the US have over China to convince the Chinese to pressure North Korea to not make nuclear weapons? Or does NK not have a serious desire to make them, and only uses the threat of making them as a way of getting things from the West?
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Sep 15, 2011 01:37
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Nenonen posted:That's not military history, it's contemporary global politics. We shouldn't muddle this thread with questions that can only be given speculative answers. Better yet, there's a DPRK Megathread here! That's a good point. I'll ask my question in that thread, instead.
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Sep 15, 2011 06:13
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Not likely. If the Germans had a regime change they might have sued for peace. If so the western allies would get there a lot faster. If Germany had sued for peace with Russia right after Stalingrad, would the Russians have accepted? Would the Americans have been able to apply enough pressure on Stalin to convince him to keep fighting, even if Stalin had wanted to. This is getting really speculative, now. 
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Sep 17, 2011 01:55
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Reading The Battle of Kursk has made me wonder if the Germans could've done anything different at this point. Everyone knew the Kursk offensive was coming, and the Soviets had plenty of time to prepare for it. If theWehrmacht could get a do-over, what should they have done different?
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Sep 19, 2011 01:23
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Why were the Germans of WW1 called Huns?
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Sep 22, 2011 04:35
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SeanBeansShako posted:British Propaganda, from the 1st World War homefront radio advertisements and posters. They were also called 'The Bosche'. But why "Huns"?
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Sep 22, 2011 04:39
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If the German's had won Kursk, what would likely have been the outcome? I'm asking a lot about Kursk because I'm reading a book on it. While the book is sound as far as explaining what unit did what, its kind of a dry read and makes me think of quite a few questions.
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Sep 24, 2011 00:59
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Define "won." Had achieved their objectives at a reasonable cost in men and material.
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Sep 24, 2011 01:43
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With regards to Kursk, the Germans surely must've known how tough a fight it would've been for them to have pushed the Soviets back from their salient. Even if the Germans had been successful in this, the loss of man and material would've been very difficult to sustain. While the Soviet Union was losing a lot more men, they seemed to be able to bear their losses better than Germany could. So even if German had "won" the offensive for Kursk, is there anyway that they could've sustained an offensive in the Eastern front with the losses they were incurring?
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Sep 24, 2011 14:35
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So pretty much Germany was done after Stalingrad?
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Sep 24, 2011 21:48
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SeanBeansShako posted:The stupid Italian and French coward accusations. The Italian and French soldier could fight like the devil, their equipment and officer staff usually let them down though. Someone once wrote a war-by-war rebuttalnof the "lol france surrenders" stereotype. Does anyone have a link to this. Wanna say it was published in the last 5 years in a newspaper but I'm not certain. Edit: if the British listened to William Pitt in the 1760s, would America probably not have declared independence? Oxford Comma fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Sep 25, 2011 |
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Sep 25, 2011 20:57
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Someone once told me that the English "gently caress you" gesture with two fingers comes from captured English archers being repatriated with these two fingers cut off so these archers could not longer use their bows. By holding them up they were showing their opponents they had their fingers still. Is this true?
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Sep 26, 2011 05:38
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Tell me more about this invasion of the moon by the Nazis.
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Sep 27, 2011 02:51
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Can I get some recommendations for book on the Battle of Britain? I'd prefer books that are told from the viewpoint of the pilots, but I'm not adverse to more strategic-level writings, either.
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Sep 27, 2011 16:05
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At the grocery store today, I overheard some old hippie (literally: it was in Berkeley) telling his friend how Roosevelt knew the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor, and did nothing about it so that the US would have justification for entering the war. Actually, he did order the carriers away so the Navy could still have those. My knowledge of the events leading up to Pearl Harbor is pretty sketchy, but I'm going to go on a limb and assume this dude is full of poo poo?
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Sep 28, 2011 19:18
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I wish WW1-style land dreadnaughts would make a return. The kind with a crew of two dozen, bristling with cannons, and communicating with HQ via carrier pigeon. Those things were  as gently caress.
Oxford Comma fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Oct 2, 2011 |
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Oct 2, 2011 17:14
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How did the Romans organize themselves?
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Oct 2, 2011 23:20
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Non Sequitur posted:Back to the sadly neglected topic of silly WWII hypotheticals, what would have happened if the Germans had persuaded the Japanese to declare war on just Britain (and the Netherlands, I guess) in 1940? Assuming that the US still stays out, the Japanese could probably have overcome Singapore and Indonesia even faster than they did in OTL. The Army would still be too tied down in China to pose a serious threat to India or Australia. That leaves the Navy owning the Eastern Pacific and with nothing to do. I have no idea but holy poo poo, I'm going to war-game that soon.
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Oct 3, 2011 04:57
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If Hitler had just said, "gently caress it, we'll come back to this city later but for now, keep on going" with regards to Stalingrad, could the Germans have had a reasonable chance at defeating the Russians? Also, was Patton a great general, or was Germany so weak at that point that most anyone could've pushed them back as fast as Patton did?
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Oct 3, 2011 15:35
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I would really like to find that rebuttal to "lol france surrenders" cliche.
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Oct 3, 2011 16:39
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Mr. Sunshine posted:The French, much like the Russians, the Poles, the Belgians and, well, everyone really, were more outmaneuvered than outfought by the Germans. The individual French soldier was a capable and brave warrior, but what the hell are you gonna do when the front is suddenly several miles behind you, and you haven't even seen the enemy? Someone once had a bullet-point list that went through all of the wars France had been involved with in the last hundred or so years, and showed why the French were brave soldiers. Wish I could find it again.
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Oct 3, 2011 19:37
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Dopilsya posted:Would it be this one? I think this is the article you were talking about, but it doesn't quite line up with your description now. I posted some info earlier, but the link was broken then (and you blatantly ignored me, anyway!). That looks like it. Thanks (and I promise to not ignore you, blatantly, in the future.)
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Oct 4, 2011 01:45
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bewbies posted:Well, you have to bear in mind what exactly "beat" means in this case. Sort of like how the CSA never could have "beaten" the US in the sense that they never could have invaded, conquered, and forced surrender, but that wasn't the objective in either case. I think that Japan's objective (to keep the US out of their affairs in Asia) was absolutely achievable, they just sort of went about it clumsily. I think the anger America felt over Pearl Harbor pretty much meant the Americans wouldn't accept anything less than the defeat of the Japanese, regardless of how long it took or how much material and manpower was required to do so.
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Oct 5, 2011 04:08
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Jesus gently caress, I'm glad the US didn't invade North Vietnam. Who cares if the Chinese invaded because the Viet Cong and NVA would've killed thousands of more Americans and the results would've been the same. The Vietnamese didn't want to be ruled by some aristocratic Roman Catholic and the American's didn't want to be in that war.
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Oct 5, 2011 19:31
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lilljonas posted:Holy poo poo, that is an amazing write-up. I could totally read about ten more pages of this. Is our concept of the samurai as a noble, death-before-dishonor-type of individual similar to someone thinking that European knights were just like King Arthur and his Round Table?
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Oct 5, 2011 22:19
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Is China's naval force pretty much going to be a regional thing? I can't imagine the Chinese maintaining a fleet anywhere in the Atlantic - with the rare exception of doing something in perhaps West Africa. I can however see them doing a lot of "training exercises" close to Japan/Taiwan/Vietnam when China needs to throw around its weight. Speaking of Chinese military, a friend of mine is convinced that a US war with China is "just over the horizon". I point out that the US and China need each other too much economically for a war to occur but he can't/won't see it that way. Which scenario is more likely? Edit: Uhhh, the above isn't really history and might be a D&D question. So, um...what happened to that Roman legion in Germany?
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Oct 6, 2011 20:08
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Speaking of samurai, I once saw a picture of a samurai who had a big sheet tied to his neck and waist. As he road, the sheet inflated and was supposed to deflect arrows. Was a sheet used like this, and was it effective?
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Oct 6, 2011 22:09
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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:One thing to note is that countries don't always stop trading when they are at war. Logic dictates they should, but history shows otherwise. Can you give an example? And I can't imagine that if the US and China were in a shooting war that the level of economic cooperation wouldn't be vastly reduced. Edit: Frederick the Great. Yay or nay?
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Oct 7, 2011 01:33
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What was Plan B if Operation Overlord failed, and the Allies got pushed back into the sea? Was it, "Welp, we'll try again next year" or something else?
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Oct 8, 2011 04:47
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Admiral Yamamoto wanted to occupy the Hawaiian islands right after Pearl Harbor. His goal was to use them as a bargaining chip, presumably to get the Americans to agree to let Japan have its Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere (the best name for an empire.) Was there any chance this could have worked, or is it basically the Japanese version of Operation Sealion?
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Oct 9, 2011 19:03
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 01:04 |
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gohuskies posted:
Japan could've had some pretty gnarly surfboard-borne troops ready to assault them tasty waves. 
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Oct 9, 2011 19:32
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