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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:) Was America's involvement in the war necessary? Could the Soviet Union have won the war against the Third Reich without American/Allied help? B:) Was America's dropping of the A-bomb necessary to win the war? C:) Was the war in Northern Africa instrumental in defeating the Third Reich? How about Italy? D:) Could the Japanese imaginary scenario for the summer of '42, their conceptions of the fleet actions around the Battle of Midway, have resulted in a sea battle that would have demoralized the USA into a negotiated settlement? E:) How did WW2 influence the beginnings of the Cold War, and the strategies of the powers involved? How did WW2 thinking influence Cold War thinking? F:)How was WW2 an end, or a continuation, of post-1815 European colonialism? How did colonies react to WW2? G:) How did the Holocaust impact European and American attitudes towards ethnic politics? How did WW2 affect the movement of peoples throughout the world? Was any of this just or right? All of these are just extremely general prompts, do not let them stop you from debating which tank was best.
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Dec 3, 2015 12:09
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WW2 was good. Discuss. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 3, 2015 12:10
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Bip Roberts posted:WW2 was good. Discuss. What if.... it was actually bad?? Discuss.
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Dec 3, 2015 12:11
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cheerfullydrab posted:What if.... it was actually bad?? Discuss. *checks scoreboard* Nahhhh
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Dec 3, 2015 12:19
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Has anyone read "Deserters" by Charles Glass? I heard about it in the most bullshit way, off of NPR, but bought and really enjoyed it. The story of Alfred Whitehead was particularity enjoyable. It made me wonder if any good study has been done of the criminality of Allied personnel on mainland Europe in '43-??. Does anyone know?
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Dec 3, 2015 13:04
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Was Adolf Hitler forced to gas Jews by a Palestinian (member of hamas???)? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 3, 2015 13:46
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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, beyond actual troop deployment american weapons were huge for the allies. B)No. It was a calculated effort to save money and the lives of American troops at the exponential expense of Japanese civilians. Also a good way to wave your dick at the communists. C)Northern Africa, no. That was all about expanding Italian colonial holdings which would have collapsed after the war and probably left north Africa better off. The invasion of Italy definitely was instrumental however. D)Definitely not. The US knew it was in a war of attrition and could out manufacture Japan by a significant amount with technologically superior equipment and fuel reserves. Japan was hosed as soon as the war started. E)We continue to manufacture military equipment such as and especially fighter jets under the presumption there will one day be a massive European land war again. F)More of an end than a continuation, but more of a evolution than an end. Economic colonialism became the imperialism du jour. Colonies saw WW2 as their chance at independence from a severely weakened colonizer. (India, Vietnam.) G)Israel. Is Israel just or right? Ain't touching that one. Panzer IV duh. KDR was anywhere from 10:1 to 19:1. God drat.
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Dec 3, 2015 14:40
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B) Would you like to be broiled or boiled? Folks that bug out about the nukes (and they were bad) need to read a few first hand accounts of the fire bombings. Nothing like folks melted into asphalt! Smelled great! KV1 (almost immortal against the first panzers) and T34. By em low, stack em high, sell em cheap.
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Dec 3, 2015 21:09
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cheerfullydrab posted:A:) Was America's involvement in the war necessary? Could the Soviet Union have won the war against the Third Reich without American/Allied help? Yes. America's involvement in the war went far beyond direct military involvement and through their supplies of resources, weapons and equipment made a huge impact on practiaclly every theater of the war. The economic might of the US really made the defeat of the Axis all but inevitable in the long run. cheerfullydrab posted:
The Sherman was perhaps not the greatest medium tank of the war. But it was very mechanically sound, easy to get back up working again after being knocked out, especially by the mechanically proficient American tank crews and support personell. When it arrived it had a pretty huge impact for the Allies as it was able to go toe-to-toe, mostly, with the Panzer IV and blast away the Panzer III. And it was versatile, the hull was used for a huge variety of different combat roles, from howitzer, to tank destroyer, to mine-clearing and engineering vehicle, multiple rocket launcher vehicle and flame thrower tank, among many, many others. The T-34 is still probably the most influential and innovative tank of the war. But people poo poo on the Sherman and they really shouldn't. Randarkman fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 21:17
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A) If we're talking about only about the European / African theaters no, but materials wise absolutely. Pacific theater it was essential for the US to be fully involved there. B) Debatable, but IMO there are more reasons/evidence to think that it was necessary than to think that it wasn't. C) North Africa / Italy was basically like the minor leagues of Europe. It gave the allies time to engage them in smaller battles to test equipment / tactics that were used later on. D) No. The US could have lost every single ship in the pacific fleet but there was no way in hell they would have accepted the Japanese suing for peace since it was always only a matter of time until we could totally out manufacture them and overtake them. E) For starters when the cold war kicked off the US thought it could win a nuclear war and that belief existed until at least the mid 60's due in part to the US's thought that it's air force was basically invincible. F) It was an end for some, but for most it was just a continuation. As for how the colonies fared, see Vietnam and the Congo for details. G) We still only give ethnic cleansing / genocide lip service sadly.
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Dec 3, 2015 21:36
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Hoooooo yes. Now we're in my bailiwick. A:) Most of the answers involving theoretical American non-involvement can be summed up with “the outcome would probably be the same, but there would be a lot more bodies.” Which is impressive given how many bodies there were ALREADY, but, y'know. In short, by the time America entered the war the Nazis had already shown themselves both hilariously unprepared to handle a war in Russia and hilariously unwilling to adapt to the circumstances, while the Russians proved the opposite in BOTH regards. The difference America made on that front was in the provision of materials, especially trucks and other vehicles, which both Russia AND Germany were short on. These allowed Russia a mobility and supply edge during the still pretty crucial years of '42 and '43, while they were revving up their own not-inconsiderable industrial engine. Even if Britain had been overrun, Russia could probably have driven the Nazis all the way out of Europe on their lonesome. But the body count would have been apocalyptic and the very real risk is that latent anti-Communism might have gelled in this theoretical universe to create some serious resistance, or that by the time they overrun Germany Russia gets so sick of the war and their huge death toll that they don't want to carry it through, so Naziism survives somewhere else. But so long as America even EXISTS the odds of it not getting involved are increasingly low. B:) The Big One. This is The Question of the war, this response is going to be an essay. I make no apologies. NECESSARY? No. An invasion of Japan itself would have worked. So would, theoretically, starving the population out through continual submarine warfare. Both of these have problems that explain why they didn't happen. The latter isn't WARLIKE enough, and it would also take a very long time—there is virtually no evidence of organized resistance to Japanese militarism during the war, certainly nothing on the order of the Stauffenberg Bomb Plot. Japan also lacked a single central figure like Hitler without whose personality and carefully cultivated image the whole thing could conceivably have unraveled--even a change in Emperor would probably have done nothing, the Emperor as an office and a FIGURE was more important than Hirohito personally. The former is the reason we dropped the bomb in the first place. Projections of the invasion were run extensively throughout 1944 and 1945 and were all universally grim. Japan is a defender's dream environment—lots and lots of loving mountains, combined with an energized populace strongly unified against a theoretical invader. Many of these predictions were influenced by the hideous, bloody struggles on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, but also the entire rest of the war up to this point. Surrender rates among Japanese troops compared to all other combatants were EXTREMELY low. We're talking single digits out of thousands in multiple situations. There had also been instances of civilians either fighting or committing suicide rather than be taken prisoner/conquered, also on Okinawa primarily. There was every reason to believe, from an American standpoint, that an invasion of Japan would involve 100% to-the-death resistance from the military and extremely high civilian resistance and partisan activity. As such, casualty figures on both sides were figured to be astronomical compared to the rest of the war. American figures ranged into the hundreds of thousands, up to a million total in dead and wounded. The official JCS Operation Coronet estimates based on prior Pacific operations were over 514,000 American casualties within 90 days. Only one military study counted potential Japanese figures, and assumed large-scale participation by the civilan population in the defense. This study estimated between five and ten million Japanese fatalities. The total population of Japan in 1945 was sixty million. With that in mind? A-bomb. A-bomb every time. There's no reason to believe a possible Soviet invasion would have been any less grotesque, nor a potential siege by submarine—look to other modern sieges like Sarajevo for examples of how that probably would wind up. The A-bombs are terrible weapons. Horrifying. They've irreversably shaped our culture. But that was their design, and their purpose, and they fulfilled it exceptionally well. They are terror weapons. It was probably a war crime to drop them. But I can't think any of the other ways of ending the war at that point would have been less of a hideous crime. And we should have locked up Curtis LeMay regardless. C:) Thank God, a less monumental question. This is complicated. In pure number terms, North Africa and Italy were sideshows to the main angle of defeating Germany, which all the troops involved were all too aware of. They didn't divert enough material or men to REALLY make a difference in how Russia or Normandy went. However, they had plenty of aspects that made them militarily worthwhile. North Africa kept the Nazis from seizing the Suez Canal, which would have made life extraordinarily difficult for the British Empire—while Germany and Italy never controlled the Mediterranean, if Britain hadn't ruled both exits to it it would have become much more of a sideshow and Britain would have had to go thousands of miles longer to support India and the Pacific—and if the Burmese theater hadn't been contained into that narrow strip between mountains and sea it would have been much more ugly than it already was. Italy DID take out a Tripartite Pact member, albeit by far the weakest one, and it helped politically by showing Russia the other Allies weren't doing NOTHING while they built up for Normandy. It also tied down Field Marshal Kesselring, one of Germany's best defensive commanders, and a number of highly skilled troops like the remnants of Germany's paratroopers. Both of those could have caused serious damage elsewhere. D:) I doubt it. The mood in the US was very, very fiery after Pearl Harbor despite almost unimaginable (to the population) setbacks. I doubt further losses would have been sufficient to demoralize the population. It would have made the war in the Pacific much more difficult, however—while US carrier production was ridiculous and would have eventually drowned Japan in numbers regardless, if they had the time to take more islands and cut off Australia then it would have been much harder to fight back simply due to the distances involved when you fight in the South Pacific. E:) World War II badly damaged the concept of Britain as a global power to be reckoned with, though that wasn't really DESTROYED until the 50's with decolonization. It solidified both Soviet Russia and the US as terrifying superpowers due to the way each had effectively crushed their respective opponent single-handedly, if at enormous cost. It introduced the atomic bomb, which revolutionized war as a CONCEPT by ending the concept of the kind of global, mass-army war we'd been building up to by that point. Superpowers no longer wanted to go to war directly, with armies "the size of cities" to quote Eichelberger--the simple threat of the bomb coming out, even in the '50s, was enough to destroy careers. Not SMALL careers either--Doug MacArthur was always an enormously popular figure, and the idea of nukes as a solution to Vietnam sank Barry Goldwater. Mercifully, it also introduced the concept that countries needed to do more after they shattered the losers they were fighting than demand compensation and walk away. Without the Marshall Plan or the postwar occupation of Japan those two countries would have been almost irreparably shattered and history would probably have repeated itself. This has helped evolve geopolitics in a positive direction, even if sometimes we forget the lessons and do poo poo like invade Iraq. F:) The big colonial empires were Britain and France--countries which practiced more direct expansionism like Russia and the US didn't really suffer as much. Britain and France got their poo poo ruined by WW2 both in the loss of prestige and the destruction of infra, and as a result couldn't maintain their huge empires anymore. Other people are far smarter than myself at explaining how colonialism/imperialism evolved post-WW2, but that is indeed what it did. Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Dec 4, 2015 |
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Dec 4, 2015 00:58
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For question A would we still be at war with Japan? I've kinda suspected the war in Europe may ended a little faster if we could have kept sending lend-lease via Vladivostok instead of the Arctic convoys.
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Dec 4, 2015 01:03
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A:) Was America's involvement in the war necessary? Could the Soviet Union have won the war against the Third Reich without American/Allied help? The Japanese sure thought so. And yes to the 2nd question. B:) Was America's dropping of the A-bomb necessary to win the war? No. C:) Was the war in Northern Africa instrumental in defeating the Third Reich? How about Italy? The question is too broad. It implies that "instrumental" is equivalent to "necessary." However, in both cases the actions were useful and fruitful. The war in North Africa was about the Suez canal, and the war in Italy was against a primary belligerent, both before and after the Italian surrender. D:) Could the Japanese imaginary scenario for the summer of '42, their conceptions of the fleet actions around the Battle of Midway, have resulted in a sea battle that would have demoralized the USA into a negotiated settlement? No. There would have been no need for a settlement when the Japanese could not conceivably "win" a war against the US; the best they could hope for was dominion over the Pacific. That would not be enough to bring the US to the settlement table. E:) How did WW2 influence the beginnings of the Cold War, and the strategies of the powers involved? How did WW2 thinking influence Cold War thinking? These questions imply Cold War Europe, which is fine, but only an extremely limited scope of the Cold War. However, it begins with this statement: there are only two likely reasons that the European war "ended" at the surrender of Germany: a) Stalin did not want to occupy more territory than he already did; or b) Stalin feared the atom bomb more than a Western Europe occupied by non-communist armies. The real movements in the Cold War were in Latin America and Asia. Europe was a mess and full of unrest of all types for decades after the war ended, but that unrest was more closely tied to ethnic struggles than ideological ones between East and West. Cleaning up after the Germans was enough to keep everyone in Europe occupied. F:)How was WW2 an end, or a continuation, of post-1815 European colonialism? How did colonies react to WW2? The history of Africa and Southeast Asia post-WW2 are adequate answers to those questions. G:) How did the Holocaust impact European and American attitudes towards ethnic politics? How did WW2 affect the movement of peoples throughout the world? Was any of this just or right? All the Holocaust did to affect European and American attitudes towards ethnic politics was to provide a convenient finger to point at the Germans, and to allow them to say "we are better than the Nazi scum." That is not a pro-German statement. America after WW2 was every bit as racist as it was before WW2, and Europe post WW2 saw the largest forced transfer of people based on ethnicity at any time in history, and to this day still is embroiled in racial, ethnic, and religious violence. Atrocities based on bigotry and intolerance ran rampant across Europe and, if anything, only intensified. Centuries-old ethnic conflicts flared in the absence of any power to stop them. And none of this even gets into the Jews and Israel as a nation and what this has done to the Middle East. There are no winners here. None of it is "just" or "right," and all that the holocaust accomplished as far as impacting ethnic politics was to create an agreed-upon limit about how far is "too far" to go when one ethnic group hates another. The whole thing makes me sick to think about. The more I read about 20th century European history and all the blood that was spilled, the cultures and nations that were destroyed, the generations that were wiped out or forced into slavery, poverty, and depravity the more I wonder at how stupid we are as a species. I cannot believe that Americans or Europeans can have no shame or any moral high ground on the issues of tolerance, compassion, or human rights. Western Europe got off easy. The Germans could not have expected any more forgiveness than they were shown - which was precious little - for the horrors that they had unleashed on the Jews and the peoples of Eastern Europe and the Soviet states. Eastern Europe bled for decades after the war, and it's only within the last 25 or so years that we can really know what was happening during the entire history of the Soviet Union and the tragedy of oppression, ethnic cleansing, and separation of entire cultures from their lands of ancestry. The 20th century was the worst century for mankind of any period of history and has no peer in scale of atrocity, hatred, violence, and oppression. And even the events of the last few days indicate that nothing has changed since then. This topic is way too big to write about, and cannot be answered in any concise way. Edit just to say that the studies I have done on these subjects and the surrounding issues are the reason I despise religious zealots, I do not believe in the concept of "race" as a subclass of the human species, I despise politics in all forms, I dispute the concept that one "culture" can enforce its will on other "cultures" on any moral grounds, and that the only hope for humanity lies in pure science and the end of all political and ethnic or religious conflict. Humans as a whole are a hosed up cancer upon the earth that for whatever obtuse reason are bent on destroying each other and our environment with us. God damnit now I'm pissed off. KaiserSchnitzel fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Dec 4, 2015 |
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Dec 4, 2015 01:16
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Redeye Flight posted:The difference America made on that front was in the provision of materials, especially trucks and other vehicles I'm pretty sure if the US kept up with it's production rates, by 1947 they would just be dropping trucks and jeeps on the enemy from 30k feet. Talk about demoralizing.
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Dec 4, 2015 01:50
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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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Hitler had some good ideas. He fought communism and bashed the fash in April '45. Discuss.. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 4, 2015 18:00
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This poster loves police brutality, but only when its against minorities!
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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. no/maybe, no, yes/extra yes, no (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 4, 2015 18:07
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A:) The Soviets probably could have won without American aid - Nazi logistics were pretty much tapped out to the point where it's unlikely that they could have penetrated far enough into the Soviet Union to crush it politically or militarily before the Red Army got its poo poo together. However, without American supplies and logistical aid, it would have been much slower, everyone involved would have suffered a lot more, and a lot more people would have died. The Soviets would probably have pushed the Nazis back eventually, but it probably would have taken years longer than it did. 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. There is, however, one catch: the Allies refused to accept anything less than unconditional total surrender, to the point where a negotiated peace deal is typically not even discussed when talking about ending the war. Unconditional surrender is actually a pretty huge deal! If the US had been willing to go to the negotiating table, I think a relatively bloodless peace was certainly possible. Of course, that probably would have involved leaving Imperial Japan intact, which would have fairly brutal consequences in the region, would poison US relations with the other Allies, and would probably have been unacceptable to American public opinion in 1945. But, y'know, a bad option with a low body count is still enough to poke holes in the "there were no options that didn't involve a shitton of dead people" narrative. C:) Not particularly. They were sideshows. Sideshows that Germany could ill afford to spend resources on, perhaps, but nothing that could change the outcome of the war. D:) Almost certainly not. The Japanese badly misjudged US politics and morale. However, it was the only hope Japan had of coming out victorious, so they clung to it no matter how unlikely it seemed. They simply had no other option - invading the US mainland was impossible for Japan, and Washington DC was safely well out of range. Winning a grand battle in overwhelming fashion and then negotiating a favorable peace agreement was simply the only way Japan could win a war against the US. Unfortunately for them, America in 1941 was far more stable and united than the Russian Empire in 1905.
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Dec 4, 2015 19:04
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DeusExMachinima posted:Hitler had some good ideas. He fought communism and bashed the fash in April '45. Discuss.. No, he also killed 1945's most effective anti-fash assassin.
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Dec 4, 2015 19:39
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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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Just to chime in on C since I've got a drat paper on it: Not necessarily, but the Allies weren't ready for cross-channel op and tackling Fortress Europe in 1943, and Africa/Italy gave them a chance to cut their teeth. It also had the added benefit of opening the Mediterannean sea lanes to the Allied supply chain.
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Dec 5, 2015 03:19
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The best tanks are clearly Hobart's Funnies and I will amphibiously fight anyone who disagrees. Anything that can carry a weapon called the Flying Dustbin is A-OK by me. http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-funny-tanks-of-d-day
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Dec 5, 2015 03:35
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Question D) is based on false premises, since it assumes a coherent Japanese strategy at the point of Midway, which didn't exist, and hadn't existed since Pearl Harbor was approved.
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Dec 5, 2015 03:41
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Effectronica posted:Question D) is based on false premises, since it assumes a coherent Japanese strategy at the point of Midway, which didn't exist, and hadn't existed since Pearl Harbor was approved. Hey buddy "one touch of the iron glove" is totally a complete and coherent strategic plan.
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Dec 5, 2015 03:43
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I think we should avoid B as much as possible. There's an entire thread that went through pretty much everything related to the atomic bombings.
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Dec 5, 2015 03:47
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So functionalism or intentionalism? I think it was a bit of both.
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Dec 5, 2015 03:48
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Hey buddy "one touch of the iron glove" is totally a complete and coherent strategic plan. That would be operational in any case, and I'm referring to something entirely different.
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Dec 5, 2015 03:55
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The french were the most ridiculously run shitshow of the war, discuss
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Dec 5, 2015 03:56
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HerraS posted:The french were the most ridiculously run shitshow of the war, discuss The prime minister of Japan and the army took months to learn what had happened at Midway. The Romanians could barely feed their armies.
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Dec 5, 2015 03:58
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Effectronica posted:The prime minister of Japan and the army took months to learn what had happened at Midway. The french chief of staff didn't have any sort of radio or telegram in his headquarters so orders or messages had to be carried by bike
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Dec 5, 2015 04:10
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E. In short, WW2 puts an end to isolationist thinking and plants the germ of American hegemony that has lasted more or less to this day. Roosevelt and his top advisers saw by 1943 that they would basically run things after the war and began planning to construct and dominate international financial and political institutions. The end goal was to make the world safe for capitalism. If you want to read more into it, Perry Anderson's "Imperium" goes into a lot more detail. If you want a more mainstream view check out Melvyn P. Leffler's "The Emergence of an American Grand Strategy, 1945-1952."
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Dec 5, 2015 04:16
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Tactically and strategically the Italians were a total disaster.
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Dec 5, 2015 04:17
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SlipUp posted:Tactically and strategically the Italians were a total disaster. They were also completely unprepared for any sort of major conflict. The french had all the means to really kick the germans poo poo in but instead they collapsed in a matter of weeks.
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Dec 5, 2015 04:23
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HerraS posted:They were also completely unprepared for any sort of major conflict. The french had all the means to really kick the germans poo poo in but instead they collapsed in a matter of weeks. The French left a lot to be desired too but... Africa quote:The Italians fared poorly in North Africa almost from the beginning. Within a week of Italy's declaration of war on 10 June 1940, the British 11th Hussars had seized Fort Capuzzo in Libya. In an ambush east of Bardia, the British captured the Italian Tenth Army's Engineer-in-Chief, General Lastucci. On 28 June Marshal Italo Balbo, the Governor-General of Libya, was killed by friendly fire while landing in Tobruk. quote:Italian forces around Sidi Barrani had severe weaknesses in their deployment. Their five main fortifications were placed too far apart to allow mutual support against an attacking force, and the areas between were weakly patrolled. The absence of motorised transport did not allow for rapid reorganisation, if needed. The rocky terrain had prevented an anti-tank ditch from being dug and there were too few mines and 47 mm anti-tank guns to repel an armoured advance. quote:On 8 December 1940, the British launched Operation Compass. Planned as an extended raid, it resulted in a force of British, Indian, and Australian troops cutting off the Italian 10th Army. Pressing the British advantage home, General Richard O'Connor succeeded in reaching El Agheila, deep in Libya (an advance of 500 miles (800 km) and taking some 130,000 prisoners.[75] The Allies nearly destroyed the 10th Army, and seemed on the point of sweeping the Italians out of Libya altogether. How the Italians totally hosed the Germans in the Balkans: quote:Invasion of Greece[edit] Mediterranean quote:On 11 November, Britain launched the first carrier strike of the war, using a squadron of Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers. This raid at Taranto left three Italian battleships crippled or destroyed for the loss of two British aircraft shot down. France had a couple weeks to embarrass itself, Italy had the whole war. Here's an open for anyone question, would Germany have been better off without the Italians and their constant need to get bailed out? SlipUp fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Dec 5, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 04:57
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Does anyone have a good book on the French being so bad in WWII? Like every history class I took glossed over it and was just like "and then France surrendered, OKAY Battle of Britain!"
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Dec 5, 2015 05:00
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Rand alPaul posted:Does anyone have a good book on the French being so bad in WWII? Like every history class I took glossed over it and was just like "and then France surrendered, OKAY Battle of Britain!" This! Years ago I was home from college during winter break and caught a show on the History Channel about the invasion of France (back when the History Channel was all Hitler-all the time) and was blown away at how good the episode was. It went into meticulous detail in regards to how the Germans advanced and the French attempts to counter. It was much more of a battle than the history books lead you to believe. Like Rand alPaul said, all we ever hear about the invasion is about how bad the French were and how the British escaped at Dunkirk. I chalk it up to the victors not wanting to discuss an embarrassment more than they have to. But I'm pretty sure that, in the summer of 1940, the world was pretty stunned by the collapse of France and it would be interesting to get a more detailed overview of what happened.
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Dec 5, 2015 05:15
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the US should have deposed Hirohito after the war and established a republic, and also starving them out instead of nukes was/should have been a viable option, if only to remove the victim narrative from postwar Japan: discuss
icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Dec 5, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 05:40
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I think hitler was bad
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Dec 5, 2015 05:58
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How long will it take to capture Baghdad? 2 days Will Saddam be killed? Yes Total Iraqi civillian casualties: 500 dead Total military casualties Iraq: 3000 dead Total military casualties U.S.: 15 dead Will the Iraqi army regulars hold the lines? No Will the Republican Guard fight to the end? No Will chem/bio weapons be used on invading troops?: Yes Will Saddam launch attacks on the Kurds? Yes Will Saddam launch attacks on Israel? No -If yes; will Isreal retaliate harshly? Yes Will Saddam sacrifice Baghdad (gas/nuke it)? No Will the Kurds make a grab for independence? Yes Will Iran do anything silly like try for land? Yes Will Saddam burn the oil fields? Yes How long will the US be occupying Iraq? ~15 years Will the Iraq war catalyze increased terrorism in America?No In the long run, will this war be good or bad for the world? Good
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Dec 5, 2015 06:03
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SpitztheGreat posted:This! Years ago I was home from college during winter break and caught a show on the History Channel about the invasion of France (back when the History Channel was all Hitler-all the time) and was blown away at how good the episode was. It went into meticulous detail in regards to how the Germans advanced and the French attempts to counter. It was much more of a battle than the history books lead you to believe. Like Rand alPaul said, all we ever hear about the invasion is about how bad the French were and how the British escaped at Dunkirk. I chalk it up to the victors not wanting to discuss an embarrassment more than they have to. But I'm pretty sure that, in the summer of 1940, the world was pretty stunned by the collapse of France and it would be interesting to get a more detailed overview of what happened. From what I've been able to gather from other WWII books, basically the French had really poor leadership, both militarily and politically, and that it relied too heavily upon the Maginot Line. They also split up their superior tanks into infantry support roles instead of massing them like Panzers. That's about it 
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Dec 5, 2015 06:08
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