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cheerfullydrab posted:Herein we talk about World War 2, an event many people believe was the hinge between the world of today and the world of yesterday. A) Yes. A majority of the equipment used by the USSR was American supplied, without this pipeline they may have actually lost. B) No, but it was necessary to stop a casualty multiplier of like 50. 10,000,000 Japanese would have died defending their homeland, and that's a conservative estimate. c) Yes. Control of the Mediterranean was extremely important to to the war effort, without this campaign even more troops could have been moved to the eastern front or the Atlantic Wall for that matter E) Stalin took over half of europe and the balkans because of Operation Dragoon, which caused an even larger polar divide amongst european countries and brought us to the Us vs Them cold war attitude. F) E: Misread, but Colonies contributed to WW2 greatly, some did not. India sent 2.5 million troops to aid Britain in hopes of gaining independence. Colonies became unfavorable after WW2. G) Israel WAR CRIME GIGOLO fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Dec 4, 2015 |
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Dec 4, 2015 17:47
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Main Paineframe posted:B:) No. However, there was no option for ending the war to Allied satisfaction that didn't involve a high risk of a whole lot of people dying, and the US was no doubt looking for an excuse to use a nuke after all that money was spent developing a miracle super weapon. A ground invasion would have been extraordinarily bloody, and simply waiting Japan out would have starved quite a few civilians. A quick surrender may have been possible after the Soviet declaration or war completely crushed Japanese hopes of a negotiated peace, but the political state of Imperial Japan meant that was by no means a guaranteed end to the bloodshed.  Kinda hard to say "We're friends now" when this is on billboards.
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Dec 4, 2015 20:17
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KaptainKrunk posted:Hard to say. Every major power committed major crimes against humanity. They're not all equally, obviously. Japan and Germany launched aggressive wars, so they're going to bear the moral responsibility associated with not only their own actions but part of the actions of those they fought against. They also stand head and shoulders above the Allies in terms of scale and intent too. Italy had a few concentration camps in Africa.
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Dec 7, 2015 23:20
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Czechoslovakia was a major manufacturer of machine guns, tanks, and artillery, most of which were assembled in the Škoda factory and had a modern army of 35 divisions. Many of these factories continued to produce Czech designs until factories were converted for German designs. Czechoslovakia also had other major manufacturing companies. Entire steel and chemical factories were moved from Czechoslovakia and reassembled in Linz, Austria which incidentally remains a heavily industrialized sector of the country. In a speech delivered in Reichstag, Hitler stressed out also the military importance of occupation, noting that by occupying Czechoslovakia, Germany gained 2,175 field canons, 469 tanks, 500 anti-aircraft artillery pieces, 43,000 machine guns, 1,090,000 military rifles, 114,000 pistols, about a billion rounds of ammunition and three millions of anti-aircraft grenades. This amount of weaponry would be sufficient to arm about half of the then Wehrmacht.[6] Czechoslovak weaponry later played major part in the German conquest of Poland and France, the countries that pressured the country's surrender to Germany in 1938.
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Dec 8, 2015 17:37
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Captain_Maclaine posted:Any particular reason you lifted that passage from wikipedia's entry on the German occupation of Czechoslovakia? Because it's an important fact in the rest of the war. Germany probably would have been crushed by France, aswell as the Invasion of poland would have been much bloodier had they not eaten Czechoslovakia in '38.
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Dec 8, 2015 18:36
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VitalSigns posted:Yeah but afterwards Poland kept refusing a military pact with the Soviet Union and it scuttled any chance at a Franco-Russian alliance to encircle Germany. haha yeah Im sure the USSR had no ulterior motives to moving through Poland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact
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Dec 10, 2015 20:47
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Cerebral Bore posted:That's a bit unfair since Molotov-Ribbentrop was a direct result of the Munich Agreement. Well yes, however this pact was very favorable to the USSR in terms of sticking it to Poland. Just because Munich was the cause of the treaty does not mean that it was not well within Stalin's desires to take half of Poland. And with the M-R Pact the Allies had no countries between Germany and USSR to prop up and utilize for containment. Which of course helped the USSR by forcing the allies to smash Germany (A capitalist country.) to contain the USSR. Which would give Stalin the ability to sweep through Europe and annihilate the remnants of the Allies/Germany with like 5 million troops (Mobilized in '39) I've been researching a theory that the Allies initiated D-Day as a response to the very real threat of the USSR replacing Germany for control of continental europe. However Operation Dragoon occurring caused Stalin to take control of most of the Balkans, which was a real blunder, Had Dragoon not occured I do believe we would have seen a real Operation Unthinkable. Or a really contained non-threat Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dragoon WAR CRIME GIGOLO fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Dec 10, 2015 |
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Dec 10, 2015 21:51
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Cerebral Bore posted:Stalin didn't give a poo poo about Poland, he gave a poo poo about Germany and the westerm powers teaming up to crush the USSR. In fact, this was the situation that the entire Soviet political-military elite had been preparing for for decades at that point. M-R let him nip that possibility in the bud as well as extend his buffer zone towards Germany, so of course he took the deal. This wasn't some calculated mater plan for world domination, it was sheer opportunism. Stalin's August 19th 1939 Speech directly stated that he wished for the capitalist countries to fight each other and exhaust each other enough to sweep through Europe. On September 1st Stalin began mobilizing his army by reducing the USSR's military age from 21 to 18, and then enacting a universal draft, which increased the soviet army from 1,900,000 to ~23 Million (5Mil Mobilized/18Mil Reserve) (From 1939 - 1941) So if France was occupied in 1940, why did Stalin continue to mobilize an offensive force and not a defensive one until the invasion of the USSR by Germany in 1941? Stalin desired the capitalist countries to fight each other, which correlates into your second point. The allies didn't initiate D-Day because Stalin asked for a second front. They initiated Operation Torch because Operation SledgeHammer "would probably be disastrous". A second front was desired to exhaust Germany and the UK-US by having them fight each other, which was kind of true if you think about the balkans and how rapidly Stalin ate it. Cerebral Bore posted:The allies initiated D-Day because Stalin had been demanding a second front for years at that point, so your theory makes no sense whatsoever. Like, the only way it could be halfway reconciled with reality is if the entire historical record WRT inter-allied diplomacy of WW2 has been falsified, so I think you're pretty far into conspiracy theory territory here. WAR CRIME GIGOLO fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Dec 10, 2015 |
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Dec 10, 2015 23:07
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Obdicut posted:What the gently caress does this mean? They initiated Operation Torch because Operation SledgeHammer "would probably be disastrous". A second front was desired to exhaust Germany and the UK-US by having them fight each other, which was kind of true if you think about the balkans and how rapidly Stalin ate it. Wasn't done writing, was in process of editing.
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Dec 10, 2015 23:31
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Cerebral Bore posted:I can't make heads or tails of what you're trying to say here. The only thing I can conclude is that you seem to be very confused about how WW2-era militaries work because you claim that mobilizing your military forces while surrounded by hostile powers and while two huge-rear end wars are going on in the neighbourhood is indicative of some kind of master plan for world conquest rather than a reasonable precaution. " If a war does break out, we will not sit with folded arms – we will have to take the field, but we will be last to do so. And we shall do so in order to throw the decisive load on the scale" Which "two massive wars" were going on in 1939? Because as I recall one of those "Massive wars" was a war in which the USSR was involved in. Also you missed the point where I spoke of the fact that the USSR was in an offensive positioning and not a defensive one. Your statement would work if the USSR was actually preparing a defense to stop Germany. Except they weren't. This would be like saying that Germany amassing on the Low countries/France was a reasonable precaution against French aggression. Soviet units were also outfitted with maps and phrasebooks for german occupied territory. What is the point of that if you are merely defensive? Oh and this is a lovely quote for a "defensive" formation "the ultimate victory of socialism... can only be achieved on an international scale" Obdicut posted:you're not making a drat lick of sense. Stalin was winning regardless of a second front or not. However pulling german units away and exhausting both Britain/US and Germany was beneficial to Stalin yes. However even with the knowledge that the UK/US did not have enough landing craft in 1941 to mount a full scale invasion Stalin still wanted this. Do you really think Stalin gave a poo poo if the UK/US Suceeded in their offensive? Tell me, who would benefit more from a disaster at D-Day. Stalin or Hitler. steinrokkan posted:I don't think it can be reasonably said that making the capitalists fight each other was Stalin's main concern after the fall of France. That and Barbarossa threw proletarian fantasies into disarray, and made material survival and relief of Russia's strain the main focal point. I don't think you realize that pre-war soviet doctrine was Marxist-Leninism, in that capitalism will be overthrown through communist revolution. WAR CRIME GIGOLO fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Dec 10, 2015 |
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Dec 10, 2015 23:48
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Merging,
WAR CRIME GIGOLO fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Dec 10, 2015 |
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Dec 10, 2015 23:50
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Merging a triple post.
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Dec 10, 2015 23:54
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Cerebral Bore posted:So you have literally no idea what you're talking about, gotcha. I don't really see why I have to explain this, but in the age of total war if you are attacked, you eventually will have to cross over into the aggressor's land in order to finish the fight. As ample evidence shows, the Soviet strategy was to blunt the initial German attack and then counterattack quickly in order to cut off the German spearheads. This kind of necessitates forces at the border. However, it isn't some kind of slam-dunk evidence that Stalin was going to start a war in 1942, or whatever the latest revisionist claptrap claims. So why is it then that these units didn't have maps of their own territory? You do realize that Military maps are topographic right? You can't use them in any other place other than the designated theater. Those maps had little to no reference to lines of defense, retreating orders or fallback points. And I'm actually glad you show your lack of understanding formations by stating that I said forces at the border meant offensive. There is a difference between offensive and defensive border positioning. It's safe to say that French forces at the Maginot line were defensive and did not plan on marching on Berlin. So why did Stalin enforce a 2 year draft in 1939 if he was planning for a defensive war? This would mean that soldiers of the USSR would have to enter war in 1 September 1941 or be released. (The draft started on 1, September 1939.) WAR CRIME GIGOLO fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Dec 11, 2015 |
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Dec 11, 2015 00:04
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Obdicut posted:I have never run into this conspiracy theory before, sorry that it's taking me a little while to get to grips with it. When I say Exhaust I don't mean the country of US or UK falls, but by exhaust I mean being unable to stop soviet expansion in continental europe. What's your opinion on what would have happened had D-Day failed, Would you say that a second attempt would have been made? I really don't think it would have. And Stalin was winning before 1944. Previously in this threat some said that the High command knew the war was being lost in 1942-1943, Stalin wanted a second front in 1941. By 1944 when D-Day occurred Berlin was going to fall regardless. I am not arguing that he didn't want a second front. But there was a need for one in 1941 originally, not 1944 as much. Yeah guys, Stalin was a really peaceful guy who didn't want to expand his ideals to any other countries...yeah 
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Dec 11, 2015 00:19
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Cerebral Bore posted:I don't think that he realizes that Stalin's main policy always was Socialism in One Country, and that he literally had people shot for advocating a spread of the revolution through force of arms. Obdicut posted:gently caress it, I was replying at length but then I realized you didn't answer the loving question. Of course a second front is desirable. But what I am saying is that it was not needed to win the war in 1944. It was needed in 1941. So which of these would need a second front more? This?  Or this  WAR CRIME GIGOLO fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Dec 11, 2015 |
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Dec 11, 2015 00:27
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vyelkin posted:It's almost like it took the US and UK two years to plan the largest amphibious invasion in human history or something. Yeah but how does that change the fact that a 1941 invasion would be more favorable To Stalin than a 1944 one, when he already had hitler on the ropes.
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Dec 11, 2015 00:40
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Cerebral Bore posted:Well, that explains it. I'm sure Stalin wanted the Allies to restore Capitalist Europe. You know that's why we have the cold war, the berlin airlift, soviet occupation of Eastern europe. Really Stalin just wanted France and Germany as friends and not fiefs.
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Dec 11, 2015 00:53
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vyelkin posted:Yes, and I'm sure that Churchill and Roosevelt/Truman would have loved to liberate Europe all the way to the Russian border if that had somehow been an option. What's your point? That Stalin actually wanted to sweep through the entirity of Continental europe and that in 1943- this was a distinct possibility had the invasion not taken place. Allies on continental Europe made taking it over pretty difficult. I doubt Stalin would have wanted a war with UK/US. However had a 1944 Invasion failed then Continental Europe would have been very very communist
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Dec 11, 2015 01:03
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Raskolnikov38 posted:What the hell are you even arguing? Duh Stalin would have taken more of Europe if he could have, he said as much at a conference later. Originally that Poland wouldn't let Russian troops support Czechoslovakia because of Soviet aggression. Then someone said Stalin was a man who believed in "Socialism in One nation" and therefore was not ready for an offensive into german territory, and was actually fearful of France and Germany and the UK teaming up and killing the commie menace once and for all therefore being prepared for a defense of the USSR. However this is insane as Stalin had ~5 Million troops mobilized and ~18 Million in reserve, and the USSR lost massive swathes of land because those troops were mobilized for an offensive not a defensive. vyelkin posted:I think his point is that Stalin was a supervillain whose master plan to take over Europe had been brewing for years and was only foiled by the Nazi invasion and the success of the Allied second front which Stalin didn't actually want despite repeatedly telling the Allies that he wanted it for years, which seems to me like a seriously confusing take on the fundamentally pragmatic, opportunist, and deeply paranoid foreign policy of the USSR under Stalin. Actually I said that in 1941 Stalin wanted a second front because he desperately needed it as Moscow under threat. But in 1944 when the offensive actually happened it was less favorable for Stalin because having allied troops on his new French Fief stopped him from sweeping over Europe. WAR CRIME GIGOLO fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Dec 11, 2015 |
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Dec 11, 2015 01:11
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Cerebral Bore posted:I, too, am convinced that Stalin would have been absolutely delighted if all those Germans that were held up in France by the threat of an US/UK invasion could have been redeployed to fight the Red Army in the east. This would totally have sapped the resources of the US and UK a lot or something, but honestly this is kinda when I lose track of the various conspiracies involved here. Troops in Western front from 1939 to 1941 : 3.5 Million Troops in Western front in 1944 1.5 Million You are dumb. Tell me more about what would have happened had D-day failed, last time I checked there wouldn't be any allied troops to stop the USSR from filling the boots of the Wehrmcht at the Atlantic Wall. WAR CRIME GIGOLO fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Dec 11, 2015 |
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Dec 11, 2015 01:19
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Taerkar posted:I like the entire idiocy of a military being capable of only being either offensive or defensive and that's why the Germans pushed them back like they did, rather than the well known facts of the disassembly of the original Stalin Line along the Polish border and the incomplete state of the Molotov Line along the new border leaving them with unfortified defensive positions. Oh and of course the reorganization and officer purges of the Red Army at the time. There's actually no difference between offensive positioning of units and a defensive one. You just start walking in a straight line forwards for attack and backwards for defense. It's not that the military is Only in "defense" or "Offense" but the fact of the matter is the lack of defensive planning. Look at Eastern front, once the german attack was halted the entire front began to buckle. I talked about this briefly, but what was found on soviet soldiers was very offensive in nature. Maps and phrase books of GERMAN controlled areas, but a very significant lack of topographical maps of soviet territory. Why would a defensive force not plan out their defense and make sure every level Platoon+ knew where to go? When Germany began Barbarossa they caught most of the soviet troops off guard, and large swathes of land were taken because of this. The soviet army was extremely organized, but was caught off guard by the fact that Germany had surprised them with the attack, which resulted in a route, namely because of those soviet troops lacking knowledge of how to mount a defense. To expand on that point a little, I don't mean his troops didn't know how to defend themselves, however if you lack any knowledge of where your comrades are while you're getting shot by fascists you may die a lot quicker. Aswell as the way troops and units are positioned when mounting a defense versus preparing an offense. Because you lack any real knowledge of warfare other than what you learned in High school History class when your teacher told you about WW1. Oh yeah forgot, no difference between defense and offense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_tactics#Offensive_tactics Why would you put your troops infront of a landmine field if you planned on retrating. Aswell as this quote in 1925 by Stalin, "Struggles, conflicts and wars among our enemies are...our great ally...and the greatest supporter of our government and our revolution" Gee can't imagine why Stalin would want to exhaust the allies or anything.  As you can see these troops are not offensive or defensive.
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Dec 11, 2015 18:17
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HerraS posted:No but you see this ideological lip service Stalin gave in the 1920s totally shows that he was going to invade in the 1940s!!!!! http://theeasternfront.org/mein_sozialismus/downloads/articleI.pdf
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Dec 11, 2015 19:19
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Mans posted:just want to preserve this post where you prove the Soviets were the bad guys that the Nazis had no choice but to fight against by quoting wikipedia articles about defensive and offensive tactics and a hearts of iron screenshot.  (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 11, 2015 19:25
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This in case that Germany would emerge victorious from the war. We must, however, envisage the possibilities that will result from the defeat as well as from the victory of Germany. In case of her defeat, a Sovietization of Germany will unavoidably occur and a Communist government will be created. We should not forget that a Sovietized Germany would bring about great danger, if this Sovietization is the result of German defeat in a transient war. England and France will still be strong enough to seize Berlin and to destroy a Soviet Germany. We would be unable to come effectually to her assistance/to the aid of our Bolshevik comrades in Germany. 
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Dec 11, 2015 19:34
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Effectronica posted:Stalin is here talking about a rerun of WW1- a collapse of Germany's civilian morale followed by a left-wing uprising. In this instance, the USSR would be able to support and seize control of this uprising, where the Spartacists failed due to the SPD aligning with the Freikorps and Stahlhelm. He goes on to say Therefore, our goal is that Germany should carry out the war as long as possible so that England and France grow weary and become exhausted to such a degree that they are no longer in a position to put down a Sovietized Germany. As I read into this further I realize that Stalin really didn't care about the US/UK and exhausting them. He was concerned about exhausting the UK/France. Obviously France was exhausted very quickly.
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Dec 11, 2015 19:43
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Effectronica posted:Yes, he's talking about a rerun of WW1, with extended trench warfare. His entire proposal was made brutally, obviously obsolete in May 1940. Very true, but the desired effect was to allow germany to exhaust the allies and take over germany . While that happened much quicker than Stalin had hoped, he still was preparing for an offensive war up until the 22nd of June, 1941. Raskolnikov38 posted:okay getting back to your original point, you disbelieve that Stalin was fearful of the Axis and Allies teaming up correct? In that document you link there's a handy quote from Stalin that states: I have no doubt that Stalin was afraid of the allies and axis teaming up. But not in the sence that these two factions would sign a peace treaty and start burning down leningrad. But let's look at this for a moment On the other hand, if we accept Germany's proposal, that you know, and conclude a non-aggression pact with her, she will certainly invade Poland, and the intervention of France and England is then unavoidable. Western Europe would be subjected to serious upheavals and disorder. In this case we will have a great opportunity to stay out of the conflict, and we could plan the opportune time for us to enter the war. Isn't this a game changer with an Axis/Allies alliance versus Comintern? Stalin states that accepting the M-R Pact will mean that no alliance is possible between the factions. Stalin wanted Hitler to take Poland so that France/UK would intervene. That's a pretty simple move to divide and conquer the capitalists. Obviously France being taken in less than 2 months was not desirable to Stalin at all, so he prepared for a sneak attack by starting the 2 year draft in 1939, changing the military age from 21 to 18. Even in 1928 when the 5 Year plans started The USSR was readying for a repeat of 1914-1918. Plan 1 Collectivise and Industrialize, Plan 2 Prioritized heavy industry, Plan 3 Militarize. All of these things from 1920s onwards indicate Stalin was readying for an extremely aggressive war. Had France/UK actually lasted long enough to exhaust Germany, then Stalin's plan would have become reality. But France died in less than 2 months. So basically france losing to hitler saved us from a communist continent. 
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Dec 11, 2015 19:55
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Mans posted:Stalin was saying that a grinding war would result in the same scenario that was seen in Germany at the end of WW1, only this time the USSR could intervene with success and save the revolution in Germany. ftfy I wouldn't say it meant nothing, but it meant that The USSR would have to step up its game and actually take Germany instead of sidelining. The USSR just saw Germany wipe out the French, and push a 300,000 man force into the sea at Dunkirk. Do you really think that defense was on STAVKA's mind? Because If you look at 1942, as soon as Germany was thrown into a defensive war it lost very quickly. WAR CRIME GIGOLO fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Dec 11, 2015 |
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Dec 11, 2015 20:10
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vyelkin posted:Yes, because the fundamental nature of Soviet foreign policy under Stalin was defensive and paranoid. The underlying assumption of all Soviet foreign policy in the 20s and 30s was that the capitalist states (which included literally everyone who wasn't the USSR--Germany, France, UK, US, Italy, Japan, all were just lumped in as "capitalist" states) were eventually going to invade the USSR because they couldn't abide the existence of a communist country. But then why is it the germans got within 10 miles of moscow? Couldn't it be argued that as soon as France fell the main objective of the USSR was to assault German held territory to stop Germany from taking over the USSR? Which would coincide with the lack of defensive planning that we saw during the early campaign of Operation Barbarossa. Stalin saw the writing on the wall, in May, 1940 Stalin had until September 1941 to enter the war before his draftees would expire. Hitler attacked in June, 4 months before the invasion of Germany that the USSR desired to happen. Those would have been a critical 4 months to finish the touches on the assaulting force, however the USSR was caught completely off guard by the german attack (History proves this.) Now obviously the Officer purge affected the soviet army, but what really affected the Soviet army was the fact that the officer count was not high enough to match the growth of the Soviet army. In 1940/1941 The officers that were in the army were basically draftees. I mean when your army goes from 1.8 Mil in 1939 to 5 Mil/18Mil reserves, it takes quite an effort to get an officer count to match that, even without a purge it would have been difficult.
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Dec 11, 2015 22:23
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Captain_Maclaine posted:Honestly? Not without going full Harry Turtledove on the whole question. Counterfactuals like this are always easy to break if you toss in enough "but what if" statements, but in reality the Nazis had basically no chance of actually winning the war in the East. At most, you can make an argument that they could've gotten to Moscow in 1941 if Hitler hadn't split efforts along three simultaneous prongs (and even then I tend to doubt it), but even if we grant that unlikely achievement I cannot imagine the Soviets would have shrugged and said "whelp, better retreat permanently behind the Urals and let the Greater Reich set up its new homeland on our territory, from which it plans to periodically attack us anyway since Nazi ideology calls for perpetual conflict to keep the Volk strong." What about when Japan practically announced that they were not going to attack the USSR and Stalin moved a large army group out of Siberia? Had those divisions not been freed up would Moscow have been liberated?
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Dec 11, 2015 23:04
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Captain_Maclaine posted:At the risk of indulging your bizarre nuttery about the war in the East: Like I said, throw in enough "what ifs" and you make anything seem trivially plausible, but given that Japan had gotten severely curbstomped by the Red Army twice in the 30s and was still scared to hell of them, and had an entirely different war(s)* going that preempted any lunatic plans to invade the Soviet Far East, I don't see how this has any particular relevance to what I said. Even if Zhukov hadn't had the Siberian divisions handy in winter 1941 and Moscow was faced with a unified Wehrmacht rather than just the advanced elements of Army Group Center and they somehow magicked up enough winterized equipment to take the city (or got their earlier, since we're in "just make poo poo up entirely" territory here), I still don't see the USSR collapsing as a belligerent power or failing, later on, to marshal an equivalent force to that which it actually used to kick Fritz all the way back to Berlin. Particularly as having a unified Wehrmacht before Moscow meant the centers of Soviet manufacture and fuel elsewhere would not have been touched by the other German Army Groups which, by definition, wouldn't have driven into the Ukraine and Baltic States. I actually just wanted to know if those 30 divisions would have made a significant impact on the siege of Moscow.
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Dec 11, 2015 23:21
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Captain_Maclaine posted:I'm confused, do you mean if Stalin had stayed paranoid about Japan and refused to move them for some reason? Yes, What I meant was IF those divisions had stayed in Siberia longer, would it make a significant impact on Moscow being liberated in '42.
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Dec 11, 2015 23:28
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Main Paineframe posted:Because Stalin knew war with Germany would happen eventually but was certain that it wouldn't happen in 1941, so he engaged in various major reorganizations and shifts and expansions in the Red Army with the goal of being absolutely ready to crush Germany by 1943 or 1944. Unfortunately for the Soviets, Hitler attacked much earlier than expected, and the Red Army was in the midst of major changes that left it in no state to fight any kind of war (offensive or defensive) when Barbarossa began. Stalin simply let his guard down, assuming that the Red Army wouldn't need to fight in 1941 and therefore it was okay to sacrifice its immediate readiness to fight for the sake of larger restructurings. So why enact a 2 year draft and raise a 5 million strong army so rapidly that your officer corps suffers if you plan to crush your enemy after those forces are released in 1941?
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Dec 11, 2015 23:50
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Captain_Maclaine posted:True, but it's far more likely to end up in Bad Alt-History land than anywhere interesting I find. Not like we're lacking things to talk about that, you know, actually happened. Stalin had an additional 18 million people drafted into the reserve on top of the 5 million man army. Raskolnikov38 posted:I dunno, sometimes they make a decent jumping off point to launch an investigation into why something happened. So if all of these people are expected to be released after their contract ends, why would you put them on the German-Soviet border? Wouldn't this signal the immediate need for an attack by Germany? As in if you witnessed your sworn enemy's manpower drop by 4 million, wouldn't you to attack? Don't you think Stalin knew this? If he wanted to train these soldiers in secret, why concentrate them on a border where their existence is known to the enemy? Maybe Stalin should have put the russian training centers on the border to really scare ol' hitler vyelkin posted:In all likelihood, a) because the Soviet Union, like the Russian Empire before it, would periodically draft people into the army even when there wasn't a war going on; b) because they wanted to establish a large number of young men with military training for whenever the war eventually did come; and c) because they were indeed involved in both a limited round of aggressive military expansion into Finland, the Baltic States, eastern Poland, and Bessarabia, and an ongoing but slow-burning conflict with the Japanese Kwantung Army, a reflection of the ongoing deterioration in peaceful foreign relations and outbreak of war around the world and around the USSR's borders. A) Russian Empire did this to cull uprisings by removing a large quantity of fighting aged males from areas of high revolt B) So slap them on the border and then tell them to go home, So really Stalin just conscripted 5 million people for border control services from 1939 to 1941? C) So therefore put them on the opposite side of the world (In reference to Kwantung). Also the draft started in 1939, the winter war ended in 1940. I really don't think 23 million people needed to be conscripted for Finland. Concentration of forces on German-USSR Border 1 January 1939 22 June 1941 Increase Divisions calculated 131.5 316.5 140.7% Personnel 2,485,000 5,774,000 132.4% Guns and mortars 55,800 117,600 110.7% Tanks 21,100 25,700 21.8% Aircraft 7,700 18,700 142.8%
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Dec 12, 2015 00:45
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Captain_Maclaine posted:All of which rested on assumptions about their enemies which were, at best, unreasonable and misinformed, and at worst ideologically-derived racist horseshit. I mean I can kinda- sorta- grant that, in a bad light with only the recent history of Munich in mind, German officials might have had some slight basis for thinking Britain would back off after the Fall of France (again, ignoring an awful lot), but Japan's presumption that the US would be willing to shrug off the loss of the Pacific Fleet and territories and not have the stomach for a long fight was entirely delusional. And Hitler's "kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down" was based entirely on his ideological presumption that the only thing that had kept the old Russian Empire up was an elite intelligentsia of ethnic Germans, which the sinister-yet-feckless Judeo-Bolsheviks had either killed or driven off. What if Dunkirk had resulted in the capture of 300,000 troops including most of the BEF. Would the UK still have fought back had their army been eradicated? I should extrapolate on this a bit, I know they would not have surrendered instantly, because they still had the RAF and RN. But what would be the implications of a german capture of that many brits WAR CRIME GIGOLO fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Dec 12, 2015 |
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Dec 12, 2015 00:49
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Bolow posted:Subutai didn't have any problems Well the blood kept the roads warm so he didn't have any issue.
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Dec 12, 2015 01:04
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Raskolnikov38 posted:You draft people to replace those that hit the age cap. IE: This makes no sense because this action would be well documented. Also this wouldn't correlate with common knowledge because it would be a class of 1918 for 1939 as Stalin reduced the Red Army age from 21 to 19.
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Dec 12, 2015 01:50
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Obdicut posted:Seriously, why are you so bad at this? Why do you look for overly complex explanations? Overcomplex? So it was all chance? Stalin happened to enact a draft which happened to end 4 months prior to the Nazi invasion of the USSR. Oh and these troops happened to be on the border of Germany? You're drawing at straws. "Oh actually that draft was totally status quo! Find me a documented source that stares the 1939 draft even happened. Because those are scarce. If it was statis quo why was it so secretive? So they just happened to assemble the largest army ever concieved of because it was a regular occurence? Do you know how much it costs to conscript 23 million people? Thats not something you do every few years. Aswell as the famines and huge drop in birth rate during 1919 onward. They just did it for the gently caress of it. Gotcha. I can see it now Stalin: lets conscripy 23 million dudes so we can train em gently caress it
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Dec 12, 2015 02:52
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Effectronica posted:And why doesn't anybody recognize that there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll? Are you going to call me a holocaust denier next?
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Dec 12, 2015 03:07
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vyelkin posted:Hmm you're right, there's no reason for the deeply paranoid and insecure USSR to expand their military at all, or place them on the border with Germany for any reason, even after Germany conquered half of Europe. They should have stuck them all in the Urals training. Placing soldiers on the border of your powerful ideological enemy who has shown a proclivity for offensive warfare is completely illogical and the only reason why you would ever do that is if you were planning to invade them. So wouldn't the idea that Germany was very well versed in offensive wars give plausibility to the thought that Stalin planned on preemptively striking Germany before he was thrown into a defensive war? Maybe one in say, 1941 when Stalin was at a significant manpower advantage proven in 1942 onwards?
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Dec 12, 2015 05:16
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 01:29 |
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Stalins such a nice guy, liberating countries from the woes of industrialization. By removing their industry.
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Dec 13, 2015 00:31
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