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Lord Tomungus posted:Here are two WWII questions I often think about; Well first off, strategic bombing isn't just bombing civilians, it's more about bombing industry, railroads, etc. I'll give a try at answering some of this: The first air raids by Germany on the UK (the Blitz) were not specifically targeted at civilians, they were meant to set the stage for an invasion. However, bombing was very inaccurate, so of course civilian targets were hit. This did put a great strain on the population, but the bombing stopped when Hitler decided it was time to attack the Russians. After the RAF raid on Lubeck, Hitler ordered bombing on purely civilian and cultural targets in the UK. By this point in the war, the RAF was dominating the skies so the retaliation had little effect on British morale. The British strategic bombing did have a substantial effect on German morale though. After the Germans lost the Battle of Stalingrad in early 1943, German morale was plummeting. More and more people were beginning to openly express contempt towards Hitler and the Nazis as it became obvious the war was being lost. Now their homes were being destroyed and it was the breaking point for a lot of people. From what I've read, many people just felt numb and apathetic after their cities were bombed. They had accepted defeat, they knew the war was lost, and felt that the Russians would treat them brutally. On top of that, the bombing was severely crippling German war production.
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| # ¿ May 31, 2010 19:38 |
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| # ¿ May 24, 2013 23:40 |
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:At what point did the average German citizen during World War 2 realize that things were really not going their way in the war? I know after Stalingrad Joseph Goebbels set the population up for total war but wasn't most of the scale of the defeat hushed up to the general populous? Did the German citizens know of the intense collapses during 43 and 44 to the extent where they knew they were hosed or were they still under the impression that they were winning the war? It would be hard to tell these people that everything is so hunky dory as their cities are bombed at all hours of the day everyday but I'm sure they tried to. I'm sure Admiral Snackbar will elaborate on this, but I've just been reading Richard Evans Third Reich series so I can give an answer. Stalingrad was a major turning point for a lot of Germans. Obviously the Propaganda ministry tried to keep everything positive, but soldiers were coming home from the front with stories so the word spread. When the 6th Army was finally destroyed many Germans realized the war was not going their way anymore. After the the battle at Kursk was lost, more lost hope. By the later end of 1943 people were starting to turn on Hitler. Less used "Hail Hitler" as a greeting. By 1944 there was open contempt for Hitler and the Nazis in many of the cities and towns (mainly those that had been heavily bombed). This was partly because of the bleak situation, and partly because there were few Nazi officials left in the towns to enforce anything. Once the Ardennes offensive failed any last hope the die-hard believers had was crushed. The prospect of defeat was even more terrifying for a lot of Germans because they had begun to learn the atrocities being committed to Russian POWs. The mindset for a lot of citizens was along the lines of "We did it to them, so they'll do it to us and be justified in doing so." So yes, between 1943 and 1944 most Germans came to realize they were hosed.
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| # ¿ Jun 7, 2010 03:45 |
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Perestroika posted:DeceasedHorse already elaborated on this better than I ever could, but here's some input from my grandfather who was a soldier in the Wehrmacht throughout the entire War. I forgot to mention this in my post. I was talking about the point where Germans knew they were going to lose the war. Many of them had accepted defeat, but still thought peace could be made with the British/US where they would be able to keep some of their territorial gains, or at least their pre-war borders. Part of the reason so many of them kept fighting was because they were so afraid the of what the Russians would do to them, so their last hope was peace with the US/UK.
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| # ¿ Jun 7, 2010 14:51 |
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Troubled Joe posted:Hmm. Are you sure you aren't confusing the story about the Red Baron in WWI? It is pretty much the exact same story, except he escorted him back over British lines, instead of back to Britain. No, someone found the story he was talking about 2 or 3 posts after he posted.
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| # ¿ Jun 7, 2010 20:57 |
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AgentF posted:Did the Japanese have anything to do with the Western front at all, or were their activities entirely restricted to the Pacific? It seems to me that they were just doing their own thing, fighting China, and that the only reason they were involved in WW2 at all was because they were allied with Germany and Italy. When they attacked Pearl Harbour, how did this involve the US in WW2, as opposed to simply starting a small American-Japanese war that ran separately alongside WW2? By the time WW2 broke out the US and Germany weren't exactly on friendly terms. The US was pretty clearly on the Allies' side, even if they hadn't declared war yet, and they were shipping boatloads of equipment to Britain. It was inevitable that the US would join the war against Germany at some point, so why not after Pearl Harbour when they'd be busy with Japan? This also allowed them to start sinking US ships carrying supplies to Britain/USSR. If Operation Barbarossa had gone somewhat as planned, the Germans would have had plenty of time to fortify Western Europe before the Allies were ready to attempt something like D-Day, and who knows where things would have gone from there. So really, from the point of view of Nazi leadership, there was no downside in declaring war on the US when they did.
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| # ¿ Jun 10, 2010 20:16 |
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Christoff posted:I know we shouldn't see the Nazis in a positive light. But obviously they were doing something right to get as far as they did. There was talk in this thread about blitzkrieg not really existing and just being a cop out for bad military strategies on our side. They had advanced submarines and airplanes, correct? Where was all their Naval bases and Naval production? France? Where was it at the start of WWI and WWII? I'd love to see a movie or read something through their point of view. All the movies and such are always hoo-rah America kill the Nazis. I knows it's something we should take pride in but again, as I said, the Nazis were doing something right and must have had plenty of war heroes as well. As well as our military blunders. We sure know about all of Hitler's. Something that we'd never learn in school, obviously. Also, just how large was their military? I mean they had troops from Germany, Austria, and where else? How the hell did they have the manpower to fight so many countries? Germany was the most populous country in Europe, and was also heavily industrialized, therefore it led to them being able to field large armies and produce a lot of equipment. Their planes weren't great, and were some were misused which further reduced their effectiveness. Specifically, the Heinkel bomber was not well suited for strategic bombing, but it was the only bomber they had in large numbers (I think) so it was what they used. Germany's industrial capacity was substantially lower than it could have been due to the Nazi disorganization. Around 1943 Hitler appointed Albert Speer (replacing Goring, who by this point was basically a fat, incompetent morphine addict) as the minister of Armaments and he was able to drastically increase industrial production, often times simply by reducing the number of parts required to build pieces of equipment. Bombing by the Allies negated a lot of the benefits, but if he had been in charge earlier Germany would have pumped out a lot more equipment. As Perestroika said, Hitler's immediate goals were to secure Lebenstraum in the East. His ultimate, long term goal was for Germany to rule the world, Berlin would be the capital city of the world. Japan, Italy and anyone else who allied with Germany would most likely have remained in existence, so long as they followed Hitler's orders about certain things (eg. remove all jews). If they refused, presumably Germany would be able to conquer them anyways. Sort of a side note: Hitler did not consider the Chinese/Japanese an inferior race. He recognized they had a long history and respected it, which I found pretty surprising. America hated communism and sided with the USSR only because they were fighting Nazi Germany. There were a lot of people terrified of communism in Western countries. The Nazis came to power largely because of their anti-communist rhetoric. If Germany was able to beat Russia before the other Allies opened a western front, who knows what would have happened. I have a feeling it would have resulted in nukes being dropped though.
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| # ¿ Jun 11, 2010 04:18 |
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Mr.Brinks posted:How far away were the Nazis from acquiring weapons of mass destruction in whatever fashion? I remember something about heavy water? As far as I know, they were pretty far from anything nuclear. They lost somewhere between 15%-30% of their most talented physicists and chemists because of their anti-Jewish measures in the 30s. On top of that, they were facing severe shortages of required materials by the later stages of the war. Surely they would have produced a bomb eventually, but they were definitely significantly behind the Manhattan Project. If they were to produce any WMD it probably would have been something biological. They studied chemicals on concentration camp inmates, but didn't have plans to use any of it in the war. They had the ability to use poisonous chemicals on allied troops even as they were closing in on Berlin, but Hitler never ordered it. Maybe getting nuked would have changed his mind, I don't know.
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| # ¿ Jun 11, 2010 04:41 |
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Mr.Brinks posted:Would they have nuked German soil though? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always supposed that a bit of racism went into the decision to bomb Japan along with everything else. It's hard to say. Maybe if the Germans defeated the USSR, Britain would have been more likely to surrender. If the Germans continued the attack on Britain and had heavily fortified the Western coast, maybe the US would have saw an atomic bomb as the only way, I don't really know. Racism did play a pretty big part in the US-Japan fighting, that's for sure.
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| # ¿ Jun 11, 2010 05:01 |
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Grand Prize Winner posted:I was under the impression (mistaken, maybe) that nuclear arms simply were not ready by the time Germany surrendered. They weren't ready at that point, you're right. I doubt they would have been used even if they were ready a couple months earlier because Germany was falling apart and it wouldn't have been necessary.
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| # ¿ Jun 11, 2010 05:09 |
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I'm going to share with you guys two lesser known "Hitler being a dick in war" moments that I enjoyed learning about. 1) Once Paris was taken and the French were ready to surrender, Hitler really wanted to rub it in. He located the train private carriage of Marshal Foch, which was being held in a museum in France. It was in this train carriage that the WWI Armistice was signed. Anyways, he had the wall of the building blown out, and had the train carriage moved to the same spot it had been when the Armistice was signed. When it came time for the surrender, Hitler sat down in the same spot the Foch had sat, listened to some of the proceedings, and then left before the official surrender took place. 2) While the above was basically harmless, and was just Hitler being a douche, this one is a bit more intense. A little bit of background: One of Mussolini's promises that he delivered on was that Italian war vets would have some land given to them. He did this by draining a marshy/swampy area in Northern Italy, and it became pretty decent farmland for a lot of Italian veterans. Now, once Italy had surrendered after being invaded by the US, Hitler was both extremely pissed off at the Italians, and wanted make sure US troops would have a hard time advancing north. First, he had all those veterans temporarily moved out of the area. Then, engineers were brought in to make the Italian pumps start re-flooding the marsh. However, that was not enough. They also started filling the area with ocean water (the reason for this I will get to in a moment). After they were done flooding, they took whatever equipment they wanted back to Germany and destroyed the rest so that it would be very difficult to undo their work. Now, the reason for the salt water was that scientists had discovered that the mosquito that carries malaria only bred in a salt water environment. A marshy, salt water environment would be the perfect breeding ground for them. Then, to ensure a malaria epidemic, they had all the stockpiles in the area of the only treatment for malaria sent back to Germany. After that they moved all the Italian veterans back to their homes (many of which were flooded). As expected, most of them died from malaria. Freeze fucked around with this message at Jun 11, 2010 around 19:12 |
| # ¿ Jun 11, 2010 17:38 |
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apathetic poster posted:I was reading last night about the Nazi sabotage of Naples. When the Nazis withdrew after the initial landing and battle of Operation Husky, they wanted to render Naples useless for military purposes. This included sinking every ship in the harbor at the bottom of the harbor, then seeding the harbor bottom with explosive poo poo to complicate salvage. In addition, they left time bombs ticking all over the place to detonate days or weeks after the liberation. When Allied engineers restored power to Naples, there was a big worry that the Nazis had tied bombs to the power grid to be triggered by fresh current. Luckily, they weren't that dickish. I vaguely remember reading about the potential for bombs to have been linked to a power grid in Italy, but I didn't know the full story. Those timed bombs must have been a bitch.
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| # ¿ Jun 11, 2010 19:15 |
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DeceasedHorse posted:Hitler was more concerned about getting starting the showdown with Russia anyway. Yeah, it's worth noting that Hitler was hoping that the Brits would join him as an ally. When they refused him he was pretty annoyed, but his heart was never really into invading and conquering them.
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| # ¿ Jun 13, 2010 06:36 |
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Ok, time for a question to try and bring this thread back. The declaration of total war didn't really change a whole lot except decreasing the quality of life of the civilians. By the time total war was declared the majority of Germans knew they were losing the war, and the declaration was more like a "the end is near, fight to the death" type of announcement. If the Nazis had gone into full efficiency mode as soon as they came into power they definitely would have had a better chance at winning. However, Hitler was careful to keep the Germans at home relatively happy because he was so afraid of the "stab in the back" on the homefront that happened in WWI. On top of that, the Nazis took a lot of counterproductive measures in the name of their ideology. For example, their goal was to take women OUT of the workforce. They offered money and medals to women who stayed at home and had children. If I remember correctly 4 was the minimum amount to get money from the government and a bronze medal of some sort. If you had a 10th child, Hitler himself would be the godfather! They also discouraged advanced education by replacing many professors with less-qualified Nazi party members. As well, they forced students to do months of labor to show them that they were not of a higher social class than manual laborers. In most cases, it ended up making the problem worse. Still, Germany probably wouldn't have had the manpower to support their huge armies and keep factories staffed, that's why they had to force in so much labor. edit: I've just recently read about 5 books on Nazi Germany and Hitler so I can try to answer any questions about that area. I'd like for Admiral Snackbar to show up again, and it would nice to keep this thread somewhat alive. Freeze fucked around with this message at Jul 1, 2010 around 22:43 |
| # ¿ Jul 1, 2010 22:33 |
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The ruthlessness of the Germans occupying western Russia also caused problems with the supply chain. A lot of people from Ukraine were actually pleased that the Germans invaded at first, but then were turned into rebels by the brutality of the Germans. Train tracks were constantly under attack by rebels which just made it even more difficult for the Germans.
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| # ¿ Jul 2, 2010 06:36 |
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:What is the long story with Switzerland's everlasting neutrality in conflicts? As far as I understand it, when they declared their neutrality in the early 1800s the other European countries basically agreed to respect it. As lilljonas said, it's a small country and it was generally just not worth it to invade. The Nazis did plan to invade at some point, but during WWII the Swiss traded with them (they produced a large portions of the ball bearings that Germany needed), and there was no threat of a Swiss attack. The USSR was the top priority, the Swiss would be taken care of later.
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| # ¿ Jul 6, 2010 20:43 |
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Tab8715 posted:So, Germany was not really a "small" country. They were the most populous country in Europe, and they were far more industrialized than most of Europe. For the most part their planes weren't horrible. In a lot of cases they were somewhat misused (such as tactical bombers being used as strategic bombers). Later on, they stopped letting new pilots train so they could save fuel. Plus, although they may have had more pilots than aircraft, the Allies still vastly outnumbered their total number of aircraft. In general it wasn't like there was a lot of really lovely German equipment. Compared to US/UK and USSR it was usually of similar quality or better. The problem was that they were vastly outnumbered and had extreme supply problems. Shimrra Jamaane posted:Are there any good books about strategic bombing in WWII? Hopefully something centered around personal accounts. I haven't read this myself, but it seems to have pretty good reviews and is also exactly what you're looking for: http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Sky-Ge...ref=pd_sim_b_13 I'm waiting until I finish my current book, then I was thinking of picking up a couple books from this series. Freeze fucked around with this message at Jul 18, 2010 around 18:01 |
| # ¿ Jul 18, 2010 17:54 |
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Troubled Joe posted:Eh? In what way do "we" like to make fun out of British military tactics and stratagy? The British military is internationally rightfully respected as being at the very top level. I've never heard anyone make fun out of the British military, only say good things about it. Especially the Americans who's generals often seem embarrassed by the difference in skill between the British squaddie and their own. I think he was probably referring mostly to the bright red coats still being used after the invention of rifles. Although you just named a couple of other good examples. Anyways, it was a light-hearted comment so don't get your panties in a knot. Every military has its blunders.
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| # ¿ Jul 19, 2010 19:46 |
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Puukko naamassa posted:Rifles began to appear on the battlefield already during the 18th century (if not earlier, I'm not sure). Just about every army dressed colorfully back then, and continued to do so through the 19th century. They had been around for quite a few years, but weren't really widely adopted until the 1850s. Anyways, the reason I mentioned it is because I thought I remembered some discussion in this thread about the "wear bright colours, stand exposed in a straight line" tactics used when firearms were still extremely inaccurate. Troubled Joe posted:It was revealed a couple of year ago that a French government, post WWII actually contacted the Prime Minister of Britain, seeking a union! France to join the UK! How bizarre! Can anyone say anymore on this act from seemingly another dimension? It would have been "The Terror" all over again in France, surely? I haven't heard anything about this, but I'd be really surprised if it occurred after the war and not just after it started. I'd be even more surprised if it was Charles de Gaulle who suggested it.
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| # ¿ Jul 19, 2010 20:32 |
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Perestroika posted:As far as I know, not that much. Theoretically they were a great way to break a stalemate and take the enemy's trench, yet they suffered massively from reliability and maintenance issues. They also scared the hell out of the soldiers who had never seen anything like them before. But yeah, overall they didn't do a whole lot.
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| # ¿ Jul 20, 2010 19:42 |
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:I'm pretty sure a lot of them did, but Hitler overruled them. Most of the generals were overconfident by the time of Barbarossa, so they were fully behind the operation. Of course, by this point, a lot of the high-ranking generals that disagreed with Hitler were no longer in positions in power. They thought they would be able to strike fast enough so that they really wouldn't have to worry about long-term logistics.
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| # ¿ Jul 26, 2010 03:11 |
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Jedi Knight Luigi posted:Couldn't a miniseries about Manfred von Richtofen's Flying Circus be just as superb as the Band of Brothers HBO miniseries? I look at movies like "Flyboys" and "The Red Baron" (2009) and cringe/weep. Then I read Peter Kilduff's detailed biography of not only von R.'s life, but also Jasta 11 (and later on, Jagdgeschwader 1) and think, Wow, there's some real connection and relationships here between all the different pilots and the pressure of the war, this could be turned into something visually and emotionally amazing...though I guess BoB had Tom Hanks and Steve Spielberg behind it, didn't it. There's enough there though to draw from though, i.e. letters/records/photographs etc., right? There probably could be an excellent miniseries made about it. Even better (I think) would be one about the Eastern front in WWII. However, it's just more profitable in the US to make war stories that involve American soldiers so I don't see any huge budget projects happening anytime soon.
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| # ¿ Aug 3, 2010 16:43 |
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Qvark posted:I mean Discovery channel and the likes. You should watch the "Green Beret vs Spetsnaz" episode of Deadliest Warrior. It's a highly scientific and very historically accurate program.
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| # ¿ Aug 6, 2010 02:53 |
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Bagheera posted:I hope that was sarcastic. Hah, Deadliest Warrior isn't nearly scientifically or historically accurate enough to make it on to the Discovery Channel. It's on Spike TV. So yes, I was being sarcastic.
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| # ¿ Aug 6, 2010 20:33 |
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Admiral Snackbar posted:Oftentimes this sort of book can be a good study in Confirmation Bias. On the topic of books (and now that you're back in the thread!), can you recommend a couple of your favorite books on military history? I'm not picky about a specific time-period or country. Just any book that you found particularly well written, interesting, or entertaining.
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| # ¿ Dec 9, 2010 01:09 |
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| # ¿ May 24, 2013 23:40 |
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Troubled Joe posted:Britain used it first in the last battles of WWI. I don't think you can say that any one country used it first in WW1, they were all experimenting with ways to break out of the trenches. As well, Germany was the only country to actually build an aircraft during WW1 that specialized in close air support.
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| # ¿ Jan 14, 2011 01:54 |
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