|
Xiahou Dun posted:Everything's a missile if you huck it hard enough. I believe the technical term is "yeet."
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 15:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 1, 2024 05:54 |
|
|
Why was Patton slapping that soldier such a big deal? Given all the other depredations of war, why did that capture the attention of the nation?
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 16:43
|
|
|
Tomn posted:I don't know if Japanese overall command really viewed the US in GENERAL as an inevitable battle that needed to be defeated for the sake of empire, but my understanding is that in the run-up to WW2 there definitely was a sense of fatalistic urgency because of the US oil embargo - I'm going to interject here. The US oil embargo happened in response to Japan occupying southern Indochina. Before that, Roosevelt had tried to negotiate a neutral status for Indochina, which Japan rejected. Southern Indochina was of no great use to Japan by itself, but it was necessary for further attacks on the Philippines, Singapore and the Dutch East Indies. Everyone involved knew this. If the embargo hadn't happened, you might think up some counter-factuals about Japan and the US remaining neutral to each other, but the more likely outcome would have been that the war happens much as before, except that Japan now has bigger fuel stockpiles. The embargo wasn't just about diplomatic pressure, it was very much intended to inhibit Japan's ability to conduct a successful war. I agree with all the rest you've written, but "the US oil embargo caused the war in the Pacific" is some widespread mono-causal revisionist myth that simplifies things far too much.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 16:44
|
|
|
zoux posted:Why was Patton slapping that soldier such a big deal? Given all the other depredations of war, why did that capture the attention of the nation? Patton got personally reprimanded by Eisenhower for it and a journalist publicized it. This was around the time everyone was slowly coming around to the idea of PTSD and psychological damage from warfare, so Patton getting publicized as beating soldiers in a hospital was now a thing you could care about. He didn't make it any better by drawing his gun to threaten one of them and having to be physically removed.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 16:51
|
|
|
chitoryu12 posted:He didn't make it any better by drawing his gun to threaten one of them and having to be physically removed. Lol I imagine not. Though the fact that he effectively lost his command for almost a year after: were his superiors just sick of his poo poo and looking for an excuse to bench him?
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 17:06
|
|
|
As I understood it, he had always had a very blunt personality. So long as he is successful that type of personality resonates really well with the public. Once he starts loving up, it makes him seem like an over-promoted thug.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 17:27
|
|
|
Chamale posted:The word melee is a bit older than that in English - it's used in Lament for the Makers, c. 1505. It shows up as a standalone noun (Victor he is at all melee), not as part of compound noun as it might be used now. That's a bit strange, but the fact that it's a Scottish source would make sense with it being earlier than the rest of England. I'd need to do a deep dive to see what was going on there specifically, but I'll pass that on to Indo-Europeanists and see what they have to say. Still, too recent to be credibly called "medieval". Loezi posted:https://books.google.com/ngrams/gra...nsensitive=true I thought about doing that, but Google's POS tagging isn't a great model for this kind of thing. Google's whole everything cares a lot more about throwing math at problems instead of language, to the point where they've weighted the POS sorting to not be trusted : black box machine learning has its downsides. Also, that data set is going to skew even more than writing in general already is going to.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 17:29
|
|
|
I know nothing about the linguistics of this, but as I remember in one of the recent ACOUP posts, Devereaux mentions “shock” as more proper terminology for hand-to-hand fighting, in battles anyway?
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 18:14
|
|
|
Hannibal Rex posted:I'm going to interject here. The US oil embargo happened in response to Japan occupying southern Indochina. Before that, Roosevelt had tried to negotiate a neutral status for Indochina, which Japan rejected. Southern Indochina was of no great use to Japan by itself, but it was necessary for further attacks on the Philippines, Singapore and the Dutch East Indies. Everyone involved knew this. Oh, no, I get that, and I appreciate the clarification. My understanding was that the US oil embargo was intended to basically stop Japan from continuing, among other things, its war in China and generally stopping its program of aggressive expansion. My point was more that after the embargo, Japanese arguments suddenly sharpened a great deal more into "We do it now or we do it never," where before thoughts about war with the US was as far as I know more a vague possibility for the future rather than an immediate strategic imperative. That's not to say that they were correct or justified in arguing the way they did, just noting that this was the framework of their internal discussions and decision-making. That being said, I'm more familiar with events after the embargo kicked in. Were there serious discussions of imminent war with the US within Japan prior to the embargo, do you know?
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 18:15
|
|
|
Koramei posted:I know nothing about the linguistics of this, but as I remember in one of the recent ACOUP posts, Devereaux mentions “shock” as more proper terminology for hand-to-hand fighting, in battles anyway? "Shock" is certainly used for weapons in anthropology - I've read it used by Otterbein and probably Turney-High.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 18:54
|
|
|
zoux posted:Lol I imagine not. eisenhower was a dude who ate poo poo sandwiches daily to keep the entire fragile political coalition going so he really did not approve at all of patton losing his poo poo and beating up hospitalized soldiers. everyone thought patton was a brilliant and aggressive officer, and he was, so he got cut a lot of slack. but he was also kind of a freak who was really into the entire idea of dying gloriously in battle, which made him really hate "cowards" like people experiencing battle fatigue, and then when he starts waving pistols around and threatening to shoot ill soldiers in front of many witnessing doctors and nurses then that really makes him come off as unhinged like there were attempts to suppress the whole thing, iirc omar bradley basically sat on the complaint out of fear that patton would get withdrawn during the sicily campaign in which patton was doing very well. but there were too many witnesses and patton's conduct was too egregious to suppress, so it became a domestic news story and minor controversy. most of the consequences later were just related to the fact that patton was a good corps commander but probably had reached the limits of his capacity if battle stress would cause him to get so emotional he could attack and threaten to shoot his own soldiers. mostly patton just got benched until the controversy died down and then his career was quietly capped, if he hadn't died in a jeep wreck he probably would have been removed from the peacetime army asap, but patton surviving into 1946 probably would have left the army anyway to go throw dynamite into ponds or whatever rich old blood and guts types do when they retire Mr. Fall Down Terror fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jun 28, 2022 |
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 19:26
|
|
|
Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:patton surviving into 1946 probably would have left the army anyway to go throw dynamite into ponds or whatever rich old blood and guts types do when they retire Was there no CNN or MSNBC to hire him as a military commentator?
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 19:30
|
|
|
Loezi posted:https://books.google.com/ngrams/gra...nsensitive=true Makes sense, that’s when video games started becoming popular with adults and mainstream
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 20:21
|
|
|
Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:eisenhower was a dude who ate poo poo sandwiches daily to keep the entire fragile political coalition going so he really did not approve at all of patton losing his poo poo and beating up hospitalized soldiers. everyone thought patton was a brilliant and aggressive officer, and he was, so he got cut a lot of slack. but he was also kind of a freak who was really into the entire idea of dying gloriously in battle, which made him really hate "cowards" like people experiencing battle fatigue, and then when he starts waving pistols around and threatening to shoot ill soldiers in front of many witnessing doctors and nurses then that really makes him come off as unhinged Dunno if Thomas Ricks is credible but he characterized Patton as someone who was among the best commanders in a narrow set of circumstances and a huge liability in others, and Eisenhower was an expert administrator in carefully placing Patton in command in the right circumstances where he couldn’t make the mistakes he was prone to make, which is the reason Patton was seen as so favorably overall despite the fact he was a unstable lunatic.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 20:29
|
|
|
SMEGMA_MAIL posted:Dunno if Thomas Ricks is credible but he characterized Patton as someone who was among the best commanders in a narrow set of circumstances and a huge liability in others, and Eisenhower was an expert administrator in carefully placing Patton in command in the right circumstances where he couldn’t make the mistakes he was prone to make, which is the reason Patton was seen as so favorably overall despite the fact he was a unstable lunatic. Sounds plausible to me, similar to Admiral Halsey in the Pacific and how Nimitz was pretty good at keeping him under control.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 20:59
|
|
|
What do you mean that Ike "ate poo poo sandwiches daily to keep the coalition together"
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 21:05
|
|
|
zoux posted:What do you mean that Ike "ate poo poo sandwiches daily to keep the coalition together" eisenhower's gift was basically making everyone think he agreed fully with them while he negotiated a compromise between incompatible arguments and positions. he had a reputation among his Mr. Fall Down Terror fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Jun 28, 2022 |
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 21:12
|
|
|
SMEGMA_MAIL posted:Dunno if Thomas Ricks is credible but he characterized Patton as someone who was among the best commanders in a narrow set of circumstances and a huge liability in others, and Eisenhower was an expert administrator in carefully placing Patton in command in the right circumstances where he couldn’t make the mistakes he was prone to make, which is the reason Patton was seen as so favorably overall despite the fact he was a unstable lunatic. yeah eisenhower went to bat for patton in terms of his utility as a general, he just told patton to chill the gently caress out and stop hitting people and gave him a time out to think about it
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 21:19
|
|
|
zoux posted:What do you mean that Ike "ate poo poo sandwiches daily to keep the coalition together" Basically his entire job was political. The office of SHAEF was more or less there to coordinate the various allied armies and make sure they worked together on big, joint operations like Sicily, Italy, Overlord, Torch, etc. Here's a basic scenario. You've got an American army and a British army that butt up against each other on the front line. American units sometimes operate in the basic area that the British do, and vice versa. Sometimes they do actual joint operations where over-all command will be with a brit or American, but they'll have divisions or even corps from the other one under their command. The American and British commanders have their own chain of command, however, that ultimately goes right up to their respective civilian leadership. Said civilian leadership has different objectives, worries, and concerns. How do you make those mesh? How do you deal with different base expectations? What do you do when there's a bad crisis? Say that in one of those joint operations a British unit gets hung out to dry and is more or less wiped out by the Germans, while an American unit nearby successfully extracts itself. How do you deal with the political fallout of all the taxpayers in England reading about their sons and husbands being sacrificed while the Americans got out? Oh and de Gaul is running around doing his thing and loudly insisting that you do X Y and Z for France. That above hypothetical is more or less what existed along the axis of advance into the Rhine and Low Countries, an the example of a British unit eating poo poo while an American one gets away is more or less what went down with Market Garden. And de Gaul is, well, de Gaul and a real pain in everyone's rear end. Basically the whole reason SHAEF existed is so that, at the end of the day, there would be a single person in over-all charge of the military situation when people complained, and all those complaints and problems percolated up to Eisenhower and his staff.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 21:19
|
|
|
Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:eisenhower's gift was basically making everyone think he agreed fully with them while he negotiated a compromise between incompatible arguments and positions. he had a reputation among his peers as being somewhat dull and easily persuaded, when really he was just incredibly good at soothing ambitious egotists and keeping them within the fold. wrangling all the great and epic personalities in the european theater was basically his job. every time ike had to sit and listen to bernard montgomery talking about how everyone but him (monty) was a fool and he (monty) should be in charge of everything was just the anglo-american alliance in miniature, and THEN you had the loving french on top of that, where dudes who habitually referred to themselves in the third person would constantly haunt ike's office demanding huge piles of armaments and money or all would be lost. eisenhower's whole deal wasn't that he was the guy making the big battle plans, but that he could get all the people making the big battle plans to focus and stop arguing for like five loving minutes. you can kinda see how he just got swept into the presidency and did a pretty good job at it He was also involved in a lot of the discussions about what theaters were getting what resources. And every politician reaching out and offering their thoughts and opinions on how the war should be run.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 21:19
|
|
|
Thomamelas posted:He was also involved in a lot of the discussions about what theaters were getting what resources. And every politician reaching out and offering their thoughts and opinions on how the war should be run. Yeah, iirc he ran a LOT of interference with Churchill suggesting invasions all over Greece and the Dalmatian Coast.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 21:28
|
|
|
I once heard that Eisenhower smoked four packs of Camel daily during his time as the allied commander. If that is true it's a miracle his body didn't just collapse after the war.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 21:32
|
|
|
Fish of hemp posted:I once heard that Eisenhower smoked four packs of Camel daily during his time as the allied commander. Eisenhower's advice on how to quit smoking is a little unusual as well https://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/31/archives/eisenhower-gives-tip-on-quitting-cigarettes.html
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 21:41
|
|
|
Fish of hemp posted:I once heard that Eisenhower smoked four packs of Camel daily during his time as the allied commander. yeah he was a heavy smoker and moderate drinker for much of his adult life. i guess he stayed somewhat physically active, he was a notable golfer, but he also had a bunch of heart attacks and strokes while POTUS and afterwards
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 21:42
|
|
|
On the other hand Eisenhower's preference to make a broad creeping advance on Germany was frustrating to the point where Monty, Patton and Bradley were all having chats between them basically saying "just loving pick one of us as the priority" but then when he did pick one it was the Bad Plan. Eisenhower was The Right Guy but it would have been good if he had fought more than one proper battle before going up to the top.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 21:47
|
|
|
smoking is pretty stochastic, some people it gets quick and some people it takes forever, my grandpa was probably about 4 a day during ww2 and kept up at least a pack a day into the 90s, but he did kick it by 1997 and made it to 2011 (when it did, in fact, kill him)gohuskies posted:Eisenhower's advice on how to quit smoking is a little unusual as well https://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/31/archives/eisenhower-gives-tip-on-quitting-cigarettes.html lol hell yeah
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 21:50
|
|
|
gohuskies posted:Eisenhower's advice on how to quit smoking is a little unusual as well https://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/31/archives/eisenhower-gives-tip-on-quitting-cigarettes.html what is it? I'm getting paywall hosed. I'm just going to assume it's "defeat Hitler, stop being stressed"
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 21:51
|
|
|
Bring pockets full of smokes, hand them out to everyone around you without taking any for yourself. Feel good and superior for refraining from smoking like everyone else does. That's about the gist of it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 21:53
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:what is it? I'm getting paywall hosed. It's carry around tons of cigarettes in your pockets and hand them out to smokers while not smoking yourself, indicating strong personal character. I've heard of people who quit smoking who keep a single pack or even one loose cigarette on their dresser as a reminder and example of personal will power. Because you never really get over smoking, I quit seven years ago and if NASA ever announced that an ELE tier asteroid was on its way I'd be torn because while the imminent destruction of myself, my loved ones and all of humanity would suck, at least I could start smoking again. I can't imagine trying to quit smoking in the 1950s.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 21:55
|
|
|
SerthVarnee posted:Bring pockets full of smokes, hand them out to everyone around you without taking any for yourself. Feel good and superior for refraining from smoking like everyone else does. lol that's the tl;dr for what one of my grandfathers did. He was in the pacific, pre-war military and ended up a Sargent. He didn't smoke but hoarded all the cigs he could get from rations etc. and gave them out to his guys.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 21:56
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:Yeah, iirc he ran a LOT of interference with Churchill suggesting invasions all over Greece and the Dalmatian Coast. Overlord must have been pure solid crack for Churchill - finally, FINALLY a naval invasion that was an unqualified success. Dude was seriously addicted to the idea of the British Army being a bullet fired by the Royal Navy. Does anybody know when he started going all-in on proposing naval invasions? Was this something he was talking about before WW1?
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 22:04
|
|
|
Is it true that Churchill's last words were to advocate an amphibious invasion of now-Pakistan using a fleet of custom-built tankships that can swim to shore while firing their main gun?
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 22:09
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 22:14
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:lol that's the tl;dr for what one of my grandfathers did. He was in the pacific, pre-war military and ended up a Sargent. He didn't smoke but hoarded all the cigs he could get from rations etc. and gave them out to his guys. my grandfather was the same way, but he had an insane sweet tooth, so he bartered his smokes for candy dude ate only ice cream for lunch every day after he was 70, lived to 94.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 22:20
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:On the other hand Eisenhower's preference to make a broad creeping advance on Germany was frustrating to the point where Monty, Patton and Bradley were all having chats between them basically saying "just loving pick one of us as the priority" but then when he did pick one it was the Bad Plan. I mean he did manage to encircle and then rout the Bonus Army pretty thoroughly.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 23:13
|
|
|
I feel obligated to point out that he didn't actually give any advice on how to quit smoking. He gave advice on how to get a feeling of accomplishment afterwards and be smug, but the "not smoking" step in there is still just "???don't put in mouth and light on fire????"
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 23:30
|
|
|
Tomn posted:My point was more that after the embargo, Japanese arguments suddenly sharpened a great deal more into "We do it now or we do it never," where before thoughts about war with the US was as far as I know more a vague possibility for the future rather than an immediate strategic imperative. That's not to say that they were correct or justified in arguing the way they did, just noting that this was the framework of their internal discussions and decision-making. I've mostly drawn on Gerhard Weinberg's description of events in A World At Arms, who references a lot of intercepted diplomatic cables. It's quite interesting to go over the back and forth between Germany and Japan. You have different factions inside the Japanese government, and the mere existence of war plans doesn't mean there's been a go ahead to implement them, and even if you start preparations, that doesn't mean you've necessarily reached the point of no return yet. After Germany's successes in Western Europe in the spring of 1940, there was a widespread belief in Japan that this was a golden opportunity to seize European possessions in SE Asia, and to do it quickly, before they were possibly ceded to Germany. In May 1940, the Japanese Navy held major exercises and war-gamed such an operation. And there, after initial successes, they anticipated an American counter-attack, that would force them into a protracted conflict that they had little chance of winning unless they could get a secure supply of fuel from the Dutch East Indies within four months, and no chance of winning if it lasted longer than a year. There was actually some thought in Japanese leadership whether or not they could go to war against Britain and the Netherlands without including the US. The Army made plans to that extent, but the Navy wasn't prepared to go ahead unless there was a clear guarantee that the US wouldn't join in. There was a back and forth of deterrence attempts between the US and Japan, which arguably kept things from going hot already in 1940. Stationing the fleet at Pearl Harbor rather than on the Pacific Coast was a part of that. I think one thing more important than the oil embargo for Japan's greater sense of urgency to start the war earlier rather than later was the Two-Ocean Navy act of July 1940. There had been some considerations to wait with further expansion into Southeast Asia until 1946, when the US planned to release the Philippines into independence, but now even the Japanese Navy could estimate that the US fleet would double in size by that time. When Japan signed the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, war with the US was already anticipated, and Germany pushed Japan to attack Britain and seize Singapore sooner rather than later, and if that wasn't possible without going to war against the US, they could count on Germany joining them. However, Roosevelt wasn't actually certain that the US public would support war with Japan, if they constrained themselves to attacking the Dutch and British, and during his election campaign, he also had to ameliorate isolationist sentiments. Only after election could he afford to make firmer commitments to the Europeans, such as "secret" talks that he could be sure the Japanese would learn of, to confirm that he wasn't bluffing earlier, and to so keep the deterrence going. Meanwhile, Japan got its back free with a neutrality pact with the Soviet Union in the spring of '41, only to reconsider that move when Germany attacked the Soviets in June. There were heated debates in Japanese government circles, and the "compromise" they reached was that a limited incursion into Southern Indochina would keep their options open, but wasn't likely to cause an oil embargo yet. And in the course of researching this reply, I've found an interesting article that suggests the full US oil embargo wasn't actually the intended response, but that a hawkish faction around Dean Acheson forced the issue while Roosevelt was off the coast of Argentina meeting Churchill. And then things spiraled on from there. https://www.jstor.org/stable/204828
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2022 23:41
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:I feel obligated to point out that he didn't actually give any advice on how to quit smoking. He gave advice on how to get a feeling of accomplishment afterwards and be smug, but the "not smoking" step in there is still just "???don't put in mouth and light on fire????" Look here sonny, its called self control. Why, back in my day we walked uphill both ways to the airfield to board our glider for our paratroop assaults etc etc.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2022 00:08
|
|
|
Arrath posted:Look here sonny, its called self control. Why, back in my day we walked uphill both ways to the airfield to board our glider for our paratroop assaults etc etc. Last time I quit smoking, I got done teaching a class, packed up my stuff, exited the building and then just froze confusedly patting my pockets because lighting up is such a central part of that process that my brain couldn't remember to walk.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2022 00:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 1, 2024 05:54 |
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:I feel obligated to point out that he didn't actually give any advice on how to quit smoking. He gave advice on how to get a feeling of accomplishment afterwards and be smug, but the "not smoking" step in there is still just "???don't put in mouth and light on fire????" For some personalities, a smug sense of superiority is a better high than nicotine could ever be
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2022 01:03
|
|
