|
Evaluate this statement: "Contrary to so many modern retellings of the era, both academic and non, it was actually quite rare to see a sword used as soldier's primary weapon on the medieval battlefield. While it certainly had (and still retains) something of a mystical quality thanks to its elegance, craftsmanship, cruciform shape, and the like, in battle the swords of the era were simply too expensive, too fragile, and too ineffectual to see widespread use. Knights typically carried weapons into battle that were far more robust, cheaper, and more effective against well-armoured opponents: battle-axes, morningstars, maces, and most commonly warhammers. Men at arms carried much the same weapons as the knight, and the levied peasant usually carried a simple wooden spear along with his knife. The knight's sword would typically remain behind in camp, or alternatively in its scabbard on his horse, its use reserved for ceremonies, dueling, and the occasional coup-de-grace of an already beaten opponent."
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2012 17:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 13, 2024 18:50 |
|
|
Semi-hyperbole, but not too far off base. When European military nobles began to use rigid armor instead of maille it became necessary to develop weapons that would punch through more readily, leading to haft-and-head style weapons like picks and maces which could be made more cheaply than a sword because their production involved less metal and less complicated shapes for the metal that was used. (Disclaimer:I am an interested amateur, not an expert by any stretch) edit: Also, can anyone address that question about the huns from the bottom of the last page?edit: Also, can anyone address that question sure about the huns? Grand Prize Winner fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Feb 5, 2012 |
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2012 18:03
|
|
|
bewbies posted:Evaluate this statement: It's an interesting idea and makes some sense logically, but by the 10th century sword technology was pretty advanced so I don't really agree with it. Europeans knew how to make Wootz steel (aka Damascus steel) by then, and that type of steel had been in use in Asia for a few centuries before that, so swords were actually pretty hardy weapons and of higher quality than they had been in previous centuries. Additionally, until the mid-14th century or so knights and men-at-arms would have been wearing chain mail, which was designed to stop slashing and bashing type attacks, a sword would have been more ideal for stabbing through the links. It's not like sword designs never evolved to cope with the armor of the day, swords adopted the sharp, diamond tip (I believe that's the term, someone correct me if I'm wrong) specifically to deal with chain mail. Swords were definitely not the only weapon that a knight used, but to say that they were hardly used at all is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2012 18:17
|
|
|
No Hunnic migration would possibly have allowed the western empire to stay power much longer then it did. The Huns moving in to eastern Europre is what forced the Goths and Vandals and Alans to try and get away from them. No Goth and Vandal migration would have allowed the Rhine and Danube to remain effective borders. The western empire obviously had a ton of problems, but the German migrations, and the WRE's horrible handling of basically every situation related to them, are what caused a lot of the problems post 350 or so. No migrations also keeps the East and West less divided, as there would be no semi Gothic state in Illyria, and less squabbles over sending help.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2012 18:25
|
|
|
But the Germanic "invasions" had been occurring prior to the Huns anyway. Tribes from Scandinavia had already started to head into modern Germany and the Baltic as early as the time of Julius Caesar and the confederations that formed from those tribes eventually became what was known as the Franks, Alamanni, Saxons, etc. The Western Roman Empire was already in decline when the Huns first attacked the Germanic tribes, the split had significantly weakened the Romans and their armies were often engaged defending the Eastern half of the Empire or simply non-existent or ineffective. The Germanic tribes were already being relied on as mercenary defenders of the Western Roman Empire and I would argue that some of them were just opportunists and used the Hun invasions as an excuse to move into better lands. The weak government at the provincial and local level on the part of the Romans basically ensured that the people being "conquered", who weren't Romans to begin with, preferred the new management. The Huns were an important factor in the Germanic invasions/migrations, but the Roman Empire was pretty much screwed anyway.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2012 18:42
|
|
|
The Huns changed the dynamic of the German/Roman wars though. It was no longer simply wars for treasure and loot. You now had entire peoples at the border demanding asylum, or simply invading. They intended now to conquer Roman land and stay there, not invade, steal stuff, and go home. This put a gigantic amount of pressure on the WRE, and the subsequent things that happened in the early 5th century pretty much doomed the WRE.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2012 18:51
|
|
|
Yeah, the Suebi and the Vandals wouldn't loot their way into the Iberian peninsula if they didn't have good reasons to do it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2012 00:15
|
|
|
What do we know of the cryptography used by the Japanese in WW2? I find the actual science/math behind breaking the German Enigma code to be fascinating, such as "cribs" and the Bombe machine, and I want to know more about what the other guys used in the Pacific. I always hear about how they fooled the Japanese into confirming Midway was the next big target, but what was the actual code they used? A substitution cipher? A machine similar to Enigma?
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2012 02:26
|
|
|
What is the reasoning for the stranger types of weapons? Things like the Khopesh, Falcata, and Rhomphaia seem like they're just the ancients experimenting with any sort of weapon design that they can think of, and I can't begin to imagine the reasoning behind the Pata, Katara, and the Khanda. Some of them look like so much thought went into their design, even if I can't figure out a thing about why they were designed in such a way, like the Kalis.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2012 02:38
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:What is the reasoning for the stranger types of weapons? Things like the Khopesh, Falcata, and Rhomphaia seem like they're just the ancients experimenting with any sort of weapon design that they can think of, and I can't begin to imagine the reasoning behind the Pata, Katara, and the Khanda. The wiki articles you linked to seem to do a pretty good job explaining what purposes those weapons served, so I don't understand what you're asking.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2012 05:34
|
|
|
Are the origins for the Cimbri and Teutons during the 2nd century BC still a mystery?
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2012 10:22
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:Are the origins for the Cimbri and Teutons during the 2nd century BC still a mystery? Dan Carlin touched this on his latest hardcore history podcast. I think now it's commonly accepted that a lot of these germanic tribes, including the Cimbri and Teutons, came from the area that is present-day Denmark and southern Sweden. Pliny the Elder, who referred to it as Scandia, nicknamed it "the womb of peoples" for all the barbarian hordes it spawned forth. But I think both the Cimbri and Teutons are claimed to have originated from Jutland.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2012 23:04
|
|
|
thekeeshman posted:The wiki articles you linked to seem to do a pretty good job explaining what purposes those weapons served, so I don't understand what you're asking. I was under the impression that most ancient-to-medieval warfare was all about spears and pikes, and swords were more for either mounted combat or sidearms for when formations break down into skirmishes. What niches were all these other weapons developed for, if that was the case?
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2012 23:40
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:I was under the impression that most ancient-to-medieval warfare was all about spears and pikes, and swords were more for either mounted combat or sidearms for when formations break down into skirmishes. What niches were all these other weapons developed for, if that was the case? Well, for most of those Indian ones that you posted they're definitely not 'ancient' just because they came out of India. Check the dates. Most of those would've been there to supplement muskets and cannons when things got close. The wiki articles basically cover, but the khanda is a big gently caress off cutting edge, the katara would've been a back up weapon, probably for really tight quarters, like a trench knife, or maybe for jabbing into less armored places in people, and the pata thingy, eh, really only exceptional in how whole hog they went with the integrated gauntlet.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2012 23:54
|
|
|
bewbies posted:Evaluate this statement: This is a very strange argument to make, as it seems to take minor historical facts from a very wide range and attempt to merge them. So I'll try and address it sentence by sentence. "Contrary to so many modern retellings of the era, both academic and non, it was actually quite rare to see a sword used as soldier's primary weapon on the medieval battlefield." This is mostly true. Foot soldiers over the length of the Middle Ages can largely be expected to carry spears or other polearms as their primary weapon, but it is clear that quite a few of them carried swords, even from fairly early in the period, and sometimes the sword took priority over the spear, as in the closer quarters of an assault. For knights, meanwhile, the spear was also the primary weapon throughout. However, in combat the lance would quite frequently break or become lodged in a body. Indeed, lances were almost guaranteed to be lost in larger-scale battles. As a consequence the sword would see frequent use. In the earlier part of the period spare lances were not used, while in the later part they would not often be immediately available. I would go so far as to argue that while the lance was very much the primary weapon available to the knight, especially in the earlier period it was the sword that did most of the killing. Thus, in the early stages of the battle with the Moorish King Bucar in El Cantar de Mio Cid, Bishop Jeronimo kill two Moors with his lance but five with his sword. "While it certainly had (and still retains) something of a mystical quality thanks to its elegance, craftsmanship, cruciform shape, and the like, in battle the swords of the era were simply too expensive, too fragile, and too ineffectual to see widespread use." Ignoring the claim of ineffectuality for the moment, which I've somewhat addressed above, swords were certainly not fragile. That we have multiple swords which had been sharpened enough times so as to seriously change their profile is proof enough of that. While expense was a serious concern for foot soldiers and some knights, swords became drastically cheaper over the period and no knight in the 11th century or after could be considered fully armed without his sword. As for the effectiveness of swords in combat, in addition to the wide range of pictorial and textual evidence, archaeological excavation of a mass grave from the battle of Towton showed ample evidence that swords were still a weapon in common use, despite the proliferation of plate armour. Indeed, sword design and shape evolved (though not in a linear fashion by any means) as time went on, and some styles, like the Type XVI or XVIII, had narrow points and stiff diamond cross-sections to enhance thrusting, and thus improve effectiveness against plate armour where thrusting at gaps was key. "Knights typically carried weapons into battle that were far more robust, cheaper, and more effective against well-armoured opponents: battle-axes, morningstars, maces, and most commonly warhammers." This is perhaps the strangest sentence, and needs some contextualisation. Warhammers don't even appear on the battlefield until the 14th century, and maces, though they existed earlier, did not become extremely common in Western Europe until later. Axes and maces of various types did certainly see wide use, but to call them more robust is questionable. Additionally, even when such weapons were used by knights they still carried swords. By the later 15th and 16th centuries such weapons were certainly common for combat against armoured opponents but to call them truly typical is going too far. "Men at arms carried much the same weapons as the knight, and the levied peasant usually carried a simple wooden spear along with his knife." The rarity of levied peasants in war aside, this sentence forgets the very great presence of professional foot soldiers and archers on the battlefield. Some of them, like Landsknechts, became very closely associated with sword use, both in the form of the two-handed swords that protected the standard bearer and the more common short sword or katzbalger. "The knight's sword would typically remain behind in camp, or alternatively in its scabbard on his horse, its use reserved for ceremonies, dueling, and the occasional coup-de-grace of an already beaten opponent." Bullshit. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Feb 7, 2012 |
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2012 23:58
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:What is the reasoning for the stranger types of weapons? Things like the Khopesh, Falcata, and Rhomphaia seem like they're just the ancients experimenting with any sort of weapon design that they can think of, and I can't begin to imagine the reasoning behind the Pata, Katara, and the Khanda.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2012 01:53
|
|
|
Was there ever a peasant-led revolution that succeeded? Or did they all wind up nailed to crosses on the road leading to Rome?
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2012 17:07
|
|
|
Russia, 1917? France, 1789 probably may or may not count depending on your view of the classes that revolted. One interesting interpretation I heard was that the Paris mob constituted a bourgeois revolt while the revolts in the countryside were peasant revolts. Of course, do you call either successful? The First Republic lasted... what, 15 years or so before Napoleon took over? Then again, France has no monarch now, so you might say the revolutionaries succeeded in the long run.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2012 17:37
|
|
|
Oxford Comma posted:Was there ever a peasant-led revolution that succeeded? Or did they all wind up nailed to crosses on the road leading to Rome? Well, technically Spartacus's boys were slaves not peasants. I guess it depends on what you mean by 'succeed'. It's not like your average mediaeval peasant revolt had a coherent ideology - they weren't generally looking to abolish the aristocracy and establish a Communist Republic or anything like that. Some of the revolts did lead the ruling classes to ease up a bit on the peasants in order to prevent a reoccurrence. It's an interesting point, though. Generally revolutions occur in cities - naturally enough, since that's where power has been concentrated since ancient times. Peasants are rural more or less by definition, so I suppose it's not surprising they're not at the forefront of such events.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2012 17:38
|
|
|
Cities also have unemployed people in them that can stir up trouble, whereas pretty much everyone in the countryside is working on a farm to some. Most probably never knew anything different, and it would be very hard to link multiple groups of farming peasants together.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2012 17:42
|
|
|
Oxford Comma posted:Was there ever a peasant-led revolution that succeeded? Or did they all wind up nailed to crosses on the road leading to Rome? Chinese Communist Revolution was much more of a rural, agrarian peasant revolution than the Russian one was, if the Russian one is too "city-intellectual". That was part of Mao's genius - how to take the Communist revolutionary thought that applied to industrial factory workers and apply it to the countryside.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2012 17:47
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:What is the reasoning for the stranger types of weapons? Things like the Khopesh, Falcata, and Rhomphaia seem like they're just the ancients experimenting with any sort of weapon design that they can think of, and I can't begin to imagine the reasoning behind the Pata, Katara, and the Khanda. All of these make sense except for the Khanda. Why would you not add a tip for stabbing on your sword?
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2012 17:58
|
|
|
IM_DA_DECIDER posted:All of these make sense except for the Khanda. Why would you not add a tip for stabbing on your sword? Because it's made for hacking people to bits instead of poking them? From the looks of it trying to add a taper to that would've greatly increased the effort needed to make the weapon, which as it is is 'long broad hunk of metal, sharpened on the sides, and stuck on a handle.'
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2012 18:09
|
|
|
Oxford Comma posted:Was there ever a peasant-led revolution that succeeded? Or did they all wind up nailed to crosses on the road leading to Rome? China is a good example, most notable dynasties aren't mongols but started out as peasant uprisings (Ming for example). During some centuries there were 1.8 recorded peasant uprisings per day.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2012 18:10
|
|
|
Grand Prize Winner posted:Russia, 1917? That stretches the definition of peasant, though. The revolution started from Petrograd and other cities and peasants had little to do with it. In some areas the landless peasants supported them, in others they supported the White generals. It also depends on what is meant by peasant-led revolution. Mao, Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh all had peasant backgrounds. Ho is perhaps the closest to the romantic peasant rebel ideals out of these: while Castro and Mao could afford university studies thanks to their better to do families, Ho worked as a cook on a ship, which landed him in Europe at a time when socialist revolutionaries were active. As for pre-socialist peasant revolutions? Haiti, 1791. They did what Spartacus couldn't. quote:Raynal's prediction came true on the night of 21 August 1791, when the slaves of Saint Domingue rose in revolt and plunged the colony into civil war. The signal to begin the revolt was given by Dutty Boukman, a high priest of vodou and leader of the Maroon slaves, during a religious ceremony at Bois Caďman on the night of 14 August. Within the next ten days, slaves had taken control of the entire Northern Province in an unprecedented slave revolt. Whites kept control of only a few isolated, fortified camps. The slaves sought revenge on their masters through "pillage, rape, torture, mutilation, and death". Because the plantation owners had long feared such a revolt, they were well armed and prepared to defend themselves. Nonetheless, within weeks, the number of slaves who joined the revolt reached some 100,000. Within the next two months, as the violence escalated, the slaves killed 4,000 whites and burned or destroyed 180 sugar plantations and hundreds of coffee and indigo plantations.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2012 18:15
|
|
|
Nenonen posted:As for pre-socialist peasant revolutions? Haiti, 1791. They did what Spartacus couldn't. Again though, slaves, not peasants. Slaves belong to people, peasants belong to the land.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2012 18:24
|
|
|
feedmegin posted:Again though, slaves, not peasants. Slaves belong to people, peasants belong to the land. Serfs belong to the land. Peasants, in theory at least, were allowed to relocate if they chose to but most did not or could not exercise that option.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2012 18:31
|
|
|
feedmegin posted:Again though, slaves, not peasants. Slaves belong to people, peasants belong to the land. I'd say it's fair to compare the lower classes in one society with the lower classes in another. Whether or not it's called a "peasant rebellion" the Haitian Revolution owned hard and it is a shame that it's not more widely known. The Black Jacobins is one of the most eye opening books I have ever read. The San Domingo colony was the most valuable piece of land in the world and something like 1/5 of all the Ancien Regime's revenue came from Haiti's sugar.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2012 18:35
|
|
|
feedmegin posted:Again though, slaves, not peasants. Well yeah, but plantation slaves are the closest equivalent to peasants in colonial era Haiti... not too many free peasants in those parts. It's hard to classify these things. Should we consider the Taliban as peasants? And can we say that they 'won' after they had taken over most of Afghanistan, or did they 'lose' when the Northern Alliance and Coalition forces took over most of the country, or is that chapter in history still going on?
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2012 19:10
|
|
|
Oxford Comma posted:Was there ever a peasant-led revolution that succeeded? Or did they all wind up nailed to crosses on the road leading to Rome? The Gallic Empire was founded by a man of humble Batavian origins, so does that count?  feedmegin posted:Again though, slaves, not peasants. Slaves belong to people, peasants belong to the land. The difference between slaves, serfs, peasants and proletariat is so nonexistent that i don't think it really matters.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2012 22:49
|
|
|
Mans posted:The difference between slaves, serfs, peasants and proletariat is so nonexistent that i don't think it really matters. I don't buy that. You can literally sell a slave, at any time, to anyone. You can sell someone's wife or kids halfway across the country. They were literally not regarded as human, couldn't own property and didn't even have standing in a court of law. Seriously, read up on antebellum slavery in the US, for example - it's some pretty horrific stuff. Being a serf/peasant still sucked balls, don't get me wrong, but there's a big difference.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2012 00:28
|
|
|
feedmegin posted:I don't buy that. You can literally sell a slave, at any time, to anyone. You can sell someone's wife or kids halfway across the country. They were literally not regarded as human, couldn't own property and didn't even have standing in a court of law. Seriously, read up on antebellum slavery in the US, for example - it's some pretty horrific stuff. Being a serf/peasant still sucked balls, don't get me wrong, but there's a big difference. In the context of this discussion, it about makes jackshit in difference. When talking about peasant revolts, we're really just talking about forces without formal military training or even access to quality weapons & equipment taking on the established military of their polity. Basically, it doesn't matter if one THEORETICALLY had the right to move away from their land or not if their weapon choices at the end of the day is more like a pitchfork or a hoe. (I don't know if that's accurate or not.)
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2012 01:15
|
|
|
Latin America had a lot of peasant-led revolutions in the 20th century. Cuba and Nicaragua are (the only) two that were obviously successful. Though you can argue that the main Communist leaders (Che Guevara, the Castro Brothers, Daniel Ortega, Carlos Fonseca) came from the intellectual elite, they all abandoned their upper-class privileges to live among the poor. And most of the leadership came from a poor rural background anyway. Looking beyond Nicaragua and Cuba, insurgencies in Guatemala and El Salvador, though not militarily successful, met most of their goals: democratic government, civilian rule over the military, and respect for indigenous rights. In that respect, they were quite successful. The FARC in Colombia has all but ceased to exist. But for the 1980's and 1990's, they carved out their own nation which the Colombian government, while not officially recognizing independence, ceded sovereignty. In Charles C. Mann's 1493: Uncovering the World Columbus Created, he details "quilombos" forest settlements in Brazil founded by indigenous tribes and escaped slaves. Many of the quilombos remained independent despite centuries of attacks by white Brazilian slave owners. Most were found a few miles away from Brazilian cities. As those cities, many of those quilombos were incorporated as suburbs, but never conquered.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2012 01:26
|
|
|
Was there ever any Roman plans to invade Scandinavia? Or, hell, plans to invade other places, like the area of Poland/East Germany? Also, when did Europeans first "discover" Sub-Saharan Africa?
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2012 02:09
|
|
|
Farecoal posted:Was there ever any Roman plans to invade Scandinavia? Or, hell, plans to invade other places, like the area of Poland/East Germany? Also, when did Europeans first "discover" Sub-Saharan Africa? The Romans never got that far north in Europe proper. They were aware of the area though, and called is Scanda I think. The Romans definitely wanted to conquer Germany north and east of the Rhine, but failed to do so. The end of their goals came with the disaster at Teutoburg Forest. In that battle, An army led by a general named Varus got fooled by a local guide and wandered into an ambush in a valley. Around 20,000 Romans died in the fighting, exterminating 3 whole legions and 6 allied cohorts. This disaster led to a few retaliatory campaigns which extended de-facto Roman control east of the Rhine for a bit, but with no intentions of actually conquering and integrating the land. The disaster led Augustus to conclude that expansion beyond the Rhine was not worth the time and effort to do so, and Hadrian, many years later, cemented that as permanent policy. The disaster so shook up Augustus, that until the day he died he would scream "Varus! Give me back my Legions!" at random times. Various Romans at times claimed they would repeat Alexander's conquest of Persia, and did campaign all around the Middle-East, Normally about as far east as Babylon, and once all the way to the Persian Gulf. These never went that far, as the Parthians and then Sassanid Empires were too large to fully conquer, even if the Romans could beat up their Western forces. They also would attempt to conquer north of the Danube, and held Dacia for like a hundred years, but never got any further up towards Hungary then that.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2012 04:15
|
|
|
Will2Powa posted:In the context of this discussion, it about makes jackshit in difference. When talking about peasant revolts, we're really just talking about forces without formal military training or even access to quality weapons & equipment taking on the established military of their polity. Basically, it doesn't matter if one THEORETICALLY had the right to move away from their land or not if their weapon choices at the end of the day is more like a pitchfork or a hoe. (I don't know if that's accurate or not.) It does make a HUGE difference when you consider that slaves were often completely restricted from congregating/freely assembling, whereas no such prohibition usually existed for peasants (although there are instances in which it did). Slaves are usually also specifically prohibited from owning weapons; peasants, especially in feudal societies, were often expected to be able to arm themselves in some way or another. No one would stop a peasant from practicing with his longbow, but I doubt you could find a slave owner in the antebellum South who wouldn't mind his slaves practicing with a flintlock.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2012 04:42
|
|
|
ripped0ff posted:It does make a HUGE difference when you consider that slaves were often completely restricted from congregating/freely assembling, whereas no such prohibition usually existed for peasants (although there are instances in which it did). Slaves are usually also specifically prohibited from owning weapons; peasants, especially in feudal societies, were often expected to be able to arm themselves in some way or another. No one would stop a peasant from practicing with his longbow, but I doubt you could find a slave owner in the antebellum South who wouldn't mind his slaves practicing with a flintlock. I'm pretty sure laws against peasants (or anybody) assembling freely were quite common through history. Weren't laws that limited the assembly of American colonists a pretty big motivator for the freedom of assembly clause in the US bill of rights? I don't have more specific examples aside from that because I just don't know enough of that sort of history, but I would be VERY surprised if it was an extremely unusual thing, especially when we're talking about rebellious groups. Aside from this: You're focusing on American slavery in the south which is not necessarily how slavery worked everywhere in the world throughout history. There may well have been slaves in other times/places that didn't even have those restrictions you're saying are inherent to slavery. Furthermore, if the issue at hand is "Have there been any successful peasant revolts?" I don't see how the extra restrictions would disqualify slaves as being of interest. The scope of the question is low class, disadvantaged groups revolting against their oppressors, so how would the (probably not universal) fact that slaves are even WORSE off than regular peasants be relevant to excluding them from discussion? Your point is probably valid in that is DOES make a difference, but not in the context of this discussion. Modern Day Hercules fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Feb 8, 2012 |
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2012 05:28
|
|
|
Amazing thread. Don't remember seeing this discussed, but I've been reading on and off for a month: The series of books Churchill wrote after he left office - where do they rank on a scale between "completely neutral and informative" and "self serving memoir of an old drunk"?
|
|
#
?
Feb 9, 2012 08:21
|
|
|
There's a pretty awesome War in the East LP by Grey Hunter going on in the LP forum: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3420660 It has had some sporadic discussion about what-if's in WW2 and for one, I think the idea that admiral Raeder and Göring presented to Hitler sometime in 1940-1941 about adopting a southern strategy instead of attacking Russia is fascinating, since it would seem that when looking at the historical events, the Germans had much more chance of success in North Africa if it would have been their focus during the middle stages of the war. Pasting from some silly german wankery forum, this seems to be match pretty well of what I remember about Raeder's proposal. quote:1, German units move through Spain to invade Gibraltar. fake edit: http://bevinalexander.com/excerpts/world-war-ii/victory-strategy-raeder-hitler.htm I think Raeder's plan was much better than what was historically done, since it would play the German strengths against Allied weakness, and at least in theory give them a better position for attacking Russia, if that was to be done. However, one thing Raeder did not take into account was the fact that the Soviet Union was reforming its military and possibly trying to create a larger buffer zone by invading Finland again to protect Leningrad. Also the idea of sending an entire Army Group to Iran doesn't seem to take into account the terrain on the Iranian-Russian border.
|
|
#
?
Feb 9, 2012 10:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 13, 2024 18:50 |
|
|
Kemper Boyd posted:There's a pretty awesome War in the East LP by Grey Hunter going on in the LP forum: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3420660 I will try to answer these one by one. Q1, German units move through Spain to invade Gibraltar. Firstly Franco did not want to join the axis and even if hed did spain was still battered from the civil war and would need a lot of (scarce) german supplies. Not to mention spain in the axis now means they have to defend one hell of a lot more coastline from an anglo american seaborne invasion. Q2, German paratroopers to land on Malta (not Crete) and German and Italian follow-up troops to begin an amphibious landing completing the sealing off the Western Approches of the Mediterannean. Plausible but then this still leaves the allies with control of crete and an ideal base from which to launch aerial attacks on both germanies main sources of raw materials in the balkans and the oilfields at polesti. unless you are proposing that the germans attack both and given the horrendous losses they took taking Crete in our history adding malta to the mix is only goint to up the casualty figures. 3, Land 4 German divisions within Spanish Morocco and fortify them with medium to long range artillery. Why? if Gibraltar is secured you already effectively own the straits and if it is not how are you going to get troops there in the first place? 4, Have German units deployed alongside Vichy French units in North West Africa. and Vichy agrees to give up its last bit of independence and leverage from Germany why? 5, Have U-Boats based in the Canary and Cape Verde Islands also in places like Casablanca and Dakar. British plans called for the immediate seizure of these islands in the event of Spain and/or Portugal joining the axis so bases there would be useless. Also the key battles would be in the north atlantic where secondary bases would not matter. 6, Delay Barbarossa 12 months and send in a full Army Group and Panzer Army with an entire Luftflotte into North Africa. Delay barbarossa? and what are the soviets doing with those 12 months? Also you can send a full army group to northern Africa but how are you going to supply it? even eliminating British pressure from Malta the Libyan ports and road/rail infrastructure can only supply so many troops and this cannot be increased quickly or easily. 7, Defeat the British and Commonwealth forces in Egypt and the Middle East and capture the oilfields and using Roumanian engineers begin refining the oil for fuel. First of all easier said than done Germany has to conquer the entire middle east an area larger than Europe and garrison it not only from attacks coming from British possessions in southern and eastern Africa but also whatever Britain can spare from India. Even if the Germans manage this and then get the oil fields up and running (presuming they are destroyed by the British) you still have the problem of transporting the oil back to Germany with what tankers? or what pipeline? Also while all the Romanian engineers are getting the middle east up and running who is minding the store back in Polesti? egion is a disaster waiting to happen. At the very least the germans will experience horrendous delays as even small russian forces will be able to block the passes. 8, Enter Iran and have by 1942 an entire Army Group located as a quick springboard to attack the Baku oilfields. Again easier said than done. Even if Germany does manage to take control of iran by ??? they still would be incredibly stupid to launch an entire army group over the Caucasus mountains. As it would mor likely be sending an entire army group down the narrow Caucasus valleys to attack russian holdings in the region. 9, Once Barbarossa is launched launch a twin assault on Murmansk by sea and land and then move in Kriegsmarine units into the White Sea and launch an amphibious landing at Arkhagelsk. Also to launch an amphibious assault on the Faroe Islands and establish a U-Boat and Luftwaffe maritime patrol base there. With what navy? the navy that by now is rusting at the bottom of the north sea? or the naval forces that are busy spread from the Mediterranean to the Indian ocean to the North Atlantic and are now being asked to support not 1 but 2 naval invasions? Also these invasions will be supported by what transports? the Germans could not scrounge up enough shipping for sealion how are they going to manage it for two other invasions? Also where are these extra armies coming from? Germany was already getting short of manpower in 1941 where is it going to find the manpower to occupy both the entire middle east and provide two new army groups for barbarossa? Really the whole plan is god-drat stupid and it assumes Stalin is dumb enough to just sit there and let the Nazis get away with it and also assumes the Nazis have magical support for their logistics and economy in order to be able to afford enough troops,ships and planes and ignore the logistics constraints mere mortals are forced to operate under. edit fixed the terrible spelling? Ferrosol fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Feb 9, 2012 |
|
#
?
Feb 9, 2012 14:01
|
|
