Hedy Lamarr came up with frequency hopping technologies to avoid jamming that were literally twenty years ahead of their time - the U.S. Navy didn't put her invention to use until the 60s.
So World of Warships is pretty accurate then in the American/Japanese naval disparity?
Basically, in the game, around half of all Japanese ships have torpedoes, and really fucking good torpedoes
And the ships best used with torpedoes are destroyers, japanese destroyers can sink American battleships with them pretty easily
American torpedoes on the other hand...
well their guns are pretty decent
American torpedoes in WW2 had defective fuses that meant that only 25% of torpedoes actually exploded. The Navy people in charge of overseeing this, refused point blank to acknowledge that there even was a problem until one sub commander took his live torpedoes and fire them straight into a Hawaiian island cliff.
The Germans had a similar fuse problem, but since their navy actually took the complaints seriously, their torpedoes where fixed pretty quickly. The US had to wait until late 1943.
Japan had actually comprehensively augmented its torpedo arsenal before and through the war, including creating the famous "Long Lance" (an American name for it) oxygen-powered torpedo--as that was a ship-to-ship torpedo, submarine and aircraft variants were also designed. Hardly perfectly, but leaps and bounds over other country's efforts. If memory serves, the Soviet Union and Germany both put pretty serious investment into electrically-driven (as oppose to steam) torpedoes, and came up with similar results.
The Germans eventually relied extremely heavily on the G7e torpedo (towards the end of the U-boat campaign, I think something like 80% of torpedoes used were electric), which originally had a few issues (and thus, the WWI-era steam-driven torpedo was preferred). In particular, the magnetic triggers on both torpedoes left a lot to be desired in 1939 but this was corrected surprisingly quickly (impact triggers were used in the meantime, as anyone who's played Silent Hunter III can attest).
The USSR eventually obtained a G7e torpedo by means of capture (again, lots of duds), but did not reverse-engineer it, surprisingly, preferring their domestic recently-completed ET-80 (like the Germans, they were relying heavily on steam-powered WWI torpedoes). Unlike the Germans, the Soviets never really committed to magnetic fuses and preferred impact fuses, which helped for reliability. Of course, the Soviet submarine navy could only do so much when literally the whole of the western half of the country was getting burned to the ground, so it was never a high priority as you saw in the Pacific War or in the Atlantic Theater. Case in point, the USSR designed the K-Class of cruising submarines, larger than the German Type IX U-Boats (that could hunt of the coast of North America)--and built a total of 12 (as oppose to the almost 300 Type IX boats Germany built). Which is why we generally don't think much about Soviet submarines during the war.
I blame the History channel. Before it turned into the garbage it is now, it spent a good couple decades basically being the WWII channel. And that entails a lot of shows like "Planes of the Third Riech". I don't know how many of those shows I watched when I was younger.
And for the many laughably impracticable 'super-weapons' the Nazi's turned out, they had the first jet fighter, the first theater ballistic missile, the first assault rifle, the best tanks(excepting maybe the T34), the best single artillery piece ever produced*, a machine gun so good(the MG42) that the US basically just copied it and called it the M60. *not saying its better than what we have now, but an anti-air, indirect fire anti-infantry, and direct fire anti-armor weapon. All in a single platform at its time is bonkers. The 88 is basically the antithesis of all the stupid 'super weapons' they made. One super flexible platform.
In addition to whatever historic truth there was about the German weapon superiority, it also is needed to fulfill the allies WWII narrative. Because 'well we sat on our asses for like the decade leading up to WWII and even the first year of the war, and then got our teeth kicked in' kinda makes you look like idiots.
I was in Denmark for vacation and one of the museums I was at had a part about the Nazi Invasion/Occupation and Resistance. It's a very weird version of WWII to see with a US perspective. Their entire armed forces took 41 casualties during the invasion. The collection took great pains to explain how much larger and better equipped the German forces were, and how Denmark had no choice but to surrender. The invasion was April 9th 1940 and lasted 6 hours before the Danes surrendered, Germany invaded Poland the previous September.
So 'Germans with massively superior weapons' is a more comfortable narrative to have rather than. 'We had plenty of warning and time to prepare and just decided it wasn't worth fighting against literal Nazis'
In addition to the Danish army being laughably tiny compared to the German war machine, the Danish landscape is also supremely ill-suited to any form of defensive guerilla war, consisting mostly of flat, open fields. Unlike, say, Norway which fought back with a lot more success and ferocity.
But apart from that, a lot of right of centre politicians had some sympathy for Germany, and there was an understanding the occupation would be, as occupations go, relatively friendly (the aforementioned polish occupation and its horrors served as a good demonstration of why you'd want to not make too much of a fuss).
Resistance didn't really get going until Germany attacked the USSR and all the Danish communists went underground (Danish authorities turned over their illegal records of communists to the Germans) - they were the biggest part of the freedom fighters, followed by conservatives. Venstre (the farmer party) and the social democrats mostly supported the policy of co-operation.
Being on formally good terms with Germany did enable some good things though, notably the smuggling of the majority of Danish Jew to neutral Sweden.
I blame the History channel. Before it turned into the garbage it is now, it spent a good couple decades basically being the WWII channel. And that entails a lot of shows like "Planes of the Third Riech". I don't know how many of those shows I watched when I was younger.
And for the many laughably impracticable 'super-weapons' the Nazi's turned out, they had the first jet fighter, the first theater ballistic missile, the first assault rifle, the best tanks(excepting maybe the T34), the best single artillery piece ever produced*, a machine gun so good(the MG42) that the US basically just copied it and called it the M60. *not saying its better than what we have now, but an anti-air, indirect fire anti-infantry, and direct fire anti-armor weapon. All in a single platform at its time is bonkers. The 88 is basically the antithesis of all the stupid 'super weapons' they made. One super flexible platform.
In addition to whatever historic truth there was about the German weapon superiority, it also is needed to fulfill the allies WWII narrative. Because 'well we sat on our asses for like the decade leading up to WWII and even the first year of the war, and then got our teeth kicked in' kinda makes you look like idiots.
I was in Denmark for vacation and one of the museums I was at had a part about the Nazi Invasion/Occupation and Resistance. It's a very weird version of WWII to see with a US perspective. Their entire armed forces took 41 casualties during the invasion. The collection took great pains to explain how much larger and better equipped the German forces were, and how Denmark had no choice but to surrender. The invasion was April 9th 1940 and lasted 6 hours before the Danes surrendered, Germany invaded Poland the previous September.
So 'Germans with massively superior weapons' is a more comfortable narrative to have rather than. 'We had plenty of warning and time to prepare and just decided it wasn't worth fighting against literal Nazis'
In addition to the Danish army being laughably tiny compared to the German war machine, the Danish landscape is also supremely ill-suited to any form of defensive guerilla war, consisting mostly of flat, open fields. Unlike, say, Norway which fought back with a lot more success and ferocity.
But apart from that, a lot of right of centre politicians had some sympathy for Germany, and there was an understanding the occupation would be, as occupations go, relatively friendly (the aforementioned polish occupation and its horrors served as a good demonstration of why you'd want to not make too much of a fuss).
Resistance didn't really get going until Germany attacked the USSR and all the Danish communists went underground (Danish authorities turned over their illegal records of communists to the Germans) - they were the biggest part of the freedom fighters, followed by conservatives. Venstre (the farmer party) and the social democrats mostly supported the policy of co-operation.
Being on formally good terms with Germany did enable some good things though, notably the smuggling of the majority of Danish Jew to neutral Sweden.
One of the bigger open secrets of WWII is that, in pretty much every case, the bulk of the resistance in the conquered European nations and inside Germany itself came from communists. This also meant that the postwar Allied occupations ended up putting Nazi collaborators back in charge, because the groups that were helping the Allies during the war were made up of communists.
It's one of those inconvenient truths that got buried in the Cold War.
I blame the History channel. Before it turned into the garbage it is now, it spent a good couple decades basically being the WWII channel. And that entails a lot of shows like "Planes of the Third Riech". I don't know how many of those shows I watched when I was younger.
And for the many laughably impracticable 'super-weapons' the Nazi's turned out, they had the first jet fighter, the first theater ballistic missile, the first assault rifle, the best tanks(excepting maybe the T34), the best single artillery piece ever produced*, a machine gun so good(the MG42) that the US basically just copied it and called it the M60. *not saying its better than what we have now, but an anti-air, indirect fire anti-infantry, and direct fire anti-armor weapon. All in a single platform at its time is bonkers. The 88 is basically the antithesis of all the stupid 'super weapons' they made. One super flexible platform.
In addition to whatever historic truth there was about the German weapon superiority, it also is needed to fulfill the allies WWII narrative. Because 'well we sat on our asses for like the decade leading up to WWII and even the first year of the war, and then got our teeth kicked in' kinda makes you look like idiots.
I was in Denmark for vacation and one of the museums I was at had a part about the Nazi Invasion/Occupation and Resistance. It's a very weird version of WWII to see with a US perspective. Their entire armed forces took 41 casualties during the invasion. The collection took great pains to explain how much larger and better equipped the German forces were, and how Denmark had no choice but to surrender. The invasion was April 9th 1940 and lasted 6 hours before the Danes surrendered, Germany invaded Poland the previous September.
So 'Germans with massively superior weapons' is a more comfortable narrative to have rather than. 'We had plenty of warning and time to prepare and just decided it wasn't worth fighting against literal Nazis'
In addition to the Danish army being laughably tiny compared to the German war machine, the Danish landscape is also supremely ill-suited to any form of defensive guerilla war, consisting mostly of flat, open fields. Unlike, say, Norway which fought back with a lot more success and ferocity.
But apart from that, a lot of right of centre politicians had some sympathy for Germany, and there was an understanding the occupation would be, as occupations go, relatively friendly (the aforementioned polish occupation and its horrors served as a good demonstration of why you'd want to not make too much of a fuss).
Resistance didn't really get going until Germany attacked the USSR and all the Danish communists went underground (Danish authorities turned over their illegal records of communists to the Germans) - they were the biggest part of the freedom fighters, followed by conservatives. Venstre (the farmer party) and the social democrats mostly supported the policy of co-operation.
Being on formally good terms with Germany did enable some good things though, notably the smuggling of the majority of Danish Jew to neutral Sweden.
Um, let's not blame resistance to the Nazi regime for Nazi war crimes.
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TurksonNear the mountains of ColoradoRegistered Userregular
I generally love the style that German gear had, over the Allies. Nothing to do with effectiveness, and a purely subjective opinion. Japanese stuff was universally butt ugly though.
The most lovely plane in WWII was the Spitfire.
Funny enough, I think the Spitfire is an ugly aircraft. Nothing to do with reputation or effectiveness, I think it's just ugly because I like the way radial engine aircraft look. I think the BF-109 is ugly for the same reason.
I think the FW-190 and Ki-100 are much more aesthetically pleasing.
The FW-190 is ok, if you like boring wings that monotonously protrude from their fuselage in a straight, predictable lines.
If you want an airframe with some pizzaz, you need look no further than the Corsair.
Sorry, I can't hear you over the unquestionable beauty if the superior marriage of a small, well-protected airframe to a giant engine.
(I actually think the Corsair is much more handsome than the other famous radial-engine aircraft, the P-47.)
Come to think of it, the Japanese also had modern ships (even if they used them in an outdated fashion, and rapidly ran out of the resources to build them)--at least as much as the other nations in the Pacific War. So, aircraft, torpedoes, and ships.
Now if World of Warships actually goddamn worked, I could give them a try.
Ehhhh. Modern warships full of wood and rice paper and covered in flammable oils with incredibly terrible damage control equipment and doctrine. I mean, I know that fire extinguishers aren't terribly sexy, but when one bomb burns one of your carriers to the waterline, but your bombers hit the same US carrier three seperate times and assume it has to be a different one each time because it looks fine and report that they've sunk three enemy carriers I think you might be screwed.
All ships have flammable components in the inside. Machinery grease, oil, bunker fuel, furniture, books and manuals, the list goes on. You are correct that the big failing point was the Japanese damage control doctrine.
The IJN maintained a separate Damage Control team on each ship. These were specialists and received the majority of the training. They were, however, very small in number. I don't have my books nearby but it was something like 20-40 guys on a major warship. Out of a crew of 1,000 plus. The USN approach is that every one is responsible for damage control and everyone is trained for it. There are a few more differences that ended up making huge differences when a fire, explosion, or flooding happen. Japanese Carriers tended to have enclosed hangar spaces under the flight deck. This does give the planes and crew some protection but I think the main idea for it was to prevent corrosion (Salt water corrosion is still very much a thing for modern naval equipment today). The Japanese Navy had limited resources and probably wanted to save on maintenance as much as possible to get as much use as possible out of their limited stocks. It's been pretty well established that the Americans had much, much greater industrial capacity than the Axis. They could just build more planes or spare parts to replace damages.
A bomb hit on the flight deck could penetrate into the hangar and if it did there were all kinds of nasty things there that do not react well to fire and explosions. Fueled up planes, bombs, torpedoes, avgas, fuel lines. All packed into a tiny, enclosed metal box. This is also where the damage control teams are stationed.
American carriers actually have open hangar spaces specifically for this eventuality. A plane or some munitions catches on fire? Over the side it goes! The trade off is that everything rusts faster.
The IJN's damage control equipment was based off of their bad doctrine. The equipment was satisfactory but in limited quantity due to their tiny DC parties. In the end, the IJN's awful damage control doctrine did in many of their ships. You'll get no argument from me.
Despite this, the IJN was the world's 2nd most powerful fleet (yes, I'd rank them over the British in World War 2). They had huge advantages in torpedoes, gunnery, optics (especially night optics)*, and trained aviators in the beginning of the war. Remember, they were having their way with both the USN and the RN combined for over 6 months.
* - High quality optics are good. Radar controlled gun systems are better. Guess which ones the Americans were developing and installing?
So World of Warships is pretty accurate then in the American/Japanese naval disparity?
Basically, in the game, around half of all Japanese ships have torpedoes, and really fucking good torpedoes
And the ships best used with torpedoes are destroyers, japanese destroyers can sink American battleships with them pretty easily
American torpedoes on the other hand...
well their guns are pretty decent
American torpedoes in WW2 had defective fuses that meant that only 25% of torpedoes actually exploded. The Navy people in charge of overseeing this, refused point blank to acknowledge that there even was a problem until one sub commander took his live torpedoes and fire them straight into a Hawaiian island cliff.
The Germans had a similar fuse problem, but since their navy actually took the complaints seriously, their torpedoes where fixed pretty quickly. The US had to wait until late 1943.
US torpedoes also under shot their targets because their running depth was calibrated based on more buoyant exercise torpedoes that had their warhead section filled with water instead of, you know, a 650lb warhead.
Oops! :rotate:
Wikipedia has a few amusing data points about the USS Sargo:
Fired 8 shots and missed. Figured out the depth issue for themselves, fixed it. Days later, fired another to no effect, and the skipper broke radio silence to bitch about the useless god damned torpedoes the Bureau of Ordinance saw fit to fill his boat with.
... and later they were nearly struck by a circular run of their own weapon.
That's the MK14 in a nutshell prior to 1943.
ArbitraryDescriptor on
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jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
I blame the History channel. Before it turned into the garbage it is now, it spent a good couple decades basically being the WWII channel. And that entails a lot of shows like "Planes of the Third Riech". I don't know how many of those shows I watched when I was younger.
And for the many laughably impracticable 'super-weapons' the Nazi's turned out, they had the first jet fighter, the first theater ballistic missile, the first assault rifle, the best tanks(excepting maybe the T34), the best single artillery piece ever produced*, a machine gun so good(the MG42) that the US basically just copied it and called it the M60. *not saying its better than what we have now, but an anti-air, indirect fire anti-infantry, and direct fire anti-armor weapon. All in a single platform at its time is bonkers. The 88 is basically the antithesis of all the stupid 'super weapons' they made. One super flexible platform.
In addition to whatever historic truth there was about the German weapon superiority, it also is needed to fulfill the allies WWII narrative. Because 'well we sat on our asses for like the decade leading up to WWII and even the first year of the war, and then got our teeth kicked in' kinda makes you look like idiots.
I was in Denmark for vacation and one of the museums I was at had a part about the Nazi Invasion/Occupation and Resistance. It's a very weird version of WWII to see with a US perspective. Their entire armed forces took 41 casualties during the invasion. The collection took great pains to explain how much larger and better equipped the German forces were, and how Denmark had no choice but to surrender. The invasion was April 9th 1940 and lasted 6 hours before the Danes surrendered, Germany invaded Poland the previous September.
So 'Germans with massively superior weapons' is a more comfortable narrative to have rather than. 'We had plenty of warning and time to prepare and just decided it wasn't worth fighting against literal Nazis'
In addition to the Danish army being laughably tiny compared to the German war machine, the Danish landscape is also supremely ill-suited to any form of defensive guerilla war, consisting mostly of flat, open fields. Unlike, say, Norway which fought back with a lot more success and ferocity.
But apart from that, a lot of right of centre politicians had some sympathy for Germany, and there was an understanding the occupation would be, as occupations go, relatively friendly (the aforementioned polish occupation and its horrors served as a good demonstration of why you'd want to not make too much of a fuss).
Resistance didn't really get going until Germany attacked the USSR and all the Danish communists went underground (Danish authorities turned over their illegal records of communists to the Germans) - they were the biggest part of the freedom fighters, followed by conservatives. Venstre (the farmer party) and the social democrats mostly supported the policy of co-operation.
Being on formally good terms with Germany did enable some good things though, notably the smuggling of the majority of Danish Jew to neutral Sweden.
Um, let's not blame resistance to the Nazi regime for Nazi war crimes.
I wasn't?
I was saying the brutality and war crimes Germany committed in Poland was a big argument in Denmark for surrendering - wanting to avoid 'polske tilstande', Polish conditions/situation. One of the factors making the policy of co-operation a reality.
Germany's actions in the East had more to do with racial ideology than how much of a fight nations put up.
You're statement came across as "if the Poles didn't resist so much, occupation would of been easier for them" (if that's not what you intended I'm sorry, that's how it came across). In truth however, German occupation of the East was never going to be easy for anyone due to Nazi idea's about race and living space.
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jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
What's the word for a fan of the Red Army and communist resistance fighters? I think I'm slightly that (with necessary addendum that I find a lot of their actions and like 99% of the soviet leaders' actions reprehensible).
Though, I'm a bigger fan of the Black army of the Makhnovites, the FAI in Catalonia etc.
Canada also had what was probably the world's fifth most powerful navy. It's commonly claimed that it was third, after the US and UK, but France and Russia seem to have had more ships by any measure you want to use. As far as I understand, Canada was also fourth or fifth in terms of its air force, behind the US, UK, and Russia, and potentially France.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
What's the word for a fan of the Red Army and communist resistance fighters? I think I'm slightly that (with necessary addendum that I find a lot of their actions and like 99% of the soviet leaders' actions reprehensible).
Though, I'm a bigger fan of the Black army of the Makhnovites, the FAI in Catalonia etc.
Guerrillas.
Haha, no, but almost every single post-war anti-colonial insurgency in the world cited in part the Red Army-organized partisans/Jewish partisans either for their tactics or their ideological narrative, or both. Certainly every leftist-aligned movement. Even though the partisans themselves had often mixed success (since so many of them were actual servicemen and servicewomen, the line between partisan and simply covert military operations gets very blurred and vague). The Israelis and many other countries, for example, used Volokolamsk Highway by B. Momyshuly (a Kazakh officer in the Red Army) as training and then military guides when they transitioned from guerrillas into regular armies. The Israelis in particular treated the book as gospel, and it was translated to Hebrew as early as 1946 (kind of odd given the state of Israeli-Soviet relations in the future).
Certainly in the Sinophone world (on both sides of the strait), the Red Army partisans were an extremely influential model, even to the German-inspired National Revolutionary Army (probably part of the reason why that shifted from a German to a more Soviet-centric model after the end of the Civil War). Extremely influential, possibly rivaling the enormous influence of the Napoleonic French and, before that, post-Colonial American military traditions.
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jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
Germany's actions in the East had more to do with racial ideology than how much of a fight nations put up.
You're statement came across as "if the Poles didn't resist so much, occupation would of been easier for them" (if that's not what you intended I'm sorry, that's how it came across). In truth however, German occupation of the East was never going to be easy for anyone due to Nazi idea's about race and living space.
No I know there was never any chance of them being nice to Eastern Europe.
However, in aryan Scandinavia Germany went a bit more gently (relatively speaking and all) but it was a fear in Denmark at the time that too much resistance might make them want to do what they did in Poland.
Not saying Poland deserved anything or brought anything upon itself, just that it served as a demonstration of how awful an occupation could be. And Denmark was in a situation where that could be avoided, was the argument supporters of cooperation made.
I blame the History channel. Before it turned into the garbage it is now, it spent a good couple decades basically being the WWII channel. And that entails a lot of shows like "Planes of the Third Riech". I don't know how many of those shows I watched when I was younger.
And for the many laughably impracticable 'super-weapons' the Nazi's turned out, they had the first jet fighter, the first theater ballistic missile, the first assault rifle, the best tanks(excepting maybe the T34), the best single artillery piece ever produced*, a machine gun so good(the MG42) that the US basically just copied it and called it the M60. *not saying its better than what we have now, but an anti-air, indirect fire anti-infantry, and direct fire anti-armor weapon. All in a single platform at its time is bonkers. The 88 is basically the antithesis of all the stupid 'super weapons' they made. One super flexible platform.
In addition to whatever historic truth there was about the German weapon superiority, it also is needed to fulfill the allies WWII narrative. Because 'well we sat on our asses for like the decade leading up to WWII and even the first year of the war, and then got our teeth kicked in' kinda makes you look like idiots.
I was in Denmark for vacation and one of the museums I was at had a part about the Nazi Invasion/Occupation and Resistance. It's a very weird version of WWII to see with a US perspective. Their entire armed forces took 41 casualties during the invasion. The collection took great pains to explain how much larger and better equipped the German forces were, and how Denmark had no choice but to surrender. The invasion was April 9th 1940 and lasted 6 hours before the Danes surrendered, Germany invaded Poland the previous September.
So 'Germans with massively superior weapons' is a more comfortable narrative to have rather than. 'We had plenty of warning and time to prepare and just decided it wasn't worth fighting against literal Nazis'
In addition to the Danish army being laughably tiny compared to the German war machine, the Danish landscape is also supremely ill-suited to any form of defensive guerilla war, consisting mostly of flat, open fields. Unlike, say, Norway which fought back with a lot more success and ferocity.
But apart from that, a lot of right of centre politicians had some sympathy for Germany, and there was an understanding the occupation would be, as occupations go, relatively friendly (the aforementioned polish occupation and its horrors served as a good demonstration of why you'd want to not make too much of a fuss).
Resistance didn't really get going until Germany attacked the USSR and all the Danish communists went underground (Danish authorities turned over their illegal records of communists to the Germans) - they were the biggest part of the freedom fighters, followed by conservatives. Venstre (the farmer party) and the social democrats mostly supported the policy of co-operation.
Being on formally good terms with Germany did enable some good things though, notably the smuggling of the majority of Danish Jew to neutral Sweden.
Um, let's not blame resistance to the Nazi regime for Nazi war crimes.
Saying "the Nazis would react with horrible brutality to resistence" isn't equivalent to "blame(ing) resistance to the Nazi regime for Nazi war crimes".
At a guess, one reason for japans lack of damage control is probably the country's general lack of mechanical knowledge. Many of their recruits were coming from non industrialized farms that had barely changed since the Meiji restoration. With the rapid growth of the navy there was little time to train navy personnel in more than the core functions of their job.
Well, that, and Japanese high commands general lack of concern over casualties. They loved the romance of newer and better torpedoes and guns, sailors who didn't want to burn to death just deserved beatings until morale improved.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
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jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
What's the word for a fan of the Red Army and communist resistance fighters? I think I'm slightly that (with necessary addendum that I find a lot of their actions and like 99% of the soviet leaders' actions reprehensible).
Though, I'm a bigger fan of the Black army of the Makhnovites, the FAI in Catalonia etc.
Guerrillas.
Haha, no, but almost every single post-war anti-colonial insurgency in the world cited in part the Red Army-organized partisans/Jewish partisans either for their tactics or their ideological narrative, or both. Certainly every leftist-aligned movement. Even though the partisans themselves had often mixed success (since so many of them were actual servicemen and servicewomen, the line between partisan and simply covert military operations gets very blurred and vague). The Israelis and many other countries, for example, used Volokolamsk Highway by B. Momyshuly (a Kazakh officer in the Red Army) as training and then military guides when they transitioned from guerrillas into regular armies. The Israelis in particular treated the book as gospel, and it was translated to Hebrew as early as 1946 (kind of odd given the state of Israeli-Soviet relations in the future).
Certainly in the Sinophone world (on both sides of the strait), the Red Army partisans were an extremely influential model, even to the German-inspired National Revolutionary Army (probably part of the reason why that shifted from a German to a more Soviet-centric model after the end of the Civil War). Extremely influential, possibly rivaling the enormous influence of the Napoleonic French and, before that, post-Colonial American military traditions.
I think it's super cool how you always contribute these less known facts and perspectives of the Cold War. Did you study it ever, or is it just personal experience and interest?
Re: Israel and Soviet, didn't the Soviets actually pursue an alliance with Israel right at the start? And of course the kibbutzes were pretty socialist in concept.
Back on topic, I was looking for a word somehow a play or expansion on weeaboo, obviously. Weeabooska? Enh.
What's the word for a fan of the Red Army and communist resistance fighters? I think I'm slightly that (with necessary addendum that I find a lot of their actions and like 99% of the soviet leaders' actions reprehensible).
Though, I'm a bigger fan of the Black army of the Makhnovites, the FAI in Catalonia etc.
Guerrillas.
Haha, no, but almost every single post-war anti-colonial insurgency in the world cited in part the Red Army-organized partisans/Jewish partisans either for their tactics or their ideological narrative, or both. Certainly every leftist-aligned movement. Even though the partisans themselves had often mixed success (since so many of them were actual servicemen and servicewomen, the line between partisan and simply covert military operations gets very blurred and vague). The Israelis and many other countries, for example, used Volokolamsk Highway by B. Momyshuly (a Kazakh officer in the Red Army) as training and then military guides when they transitioned from guerrillas into regular armies. The Israelis in particular treated the book as gospel, and it was translated to Hebrew as early as 1946 (kind of odd given the state of Israeli-Soviet relations in the future).
Certainly in the Sinophone world (on both sides of the strait), the Red Army partisans were an extremely influential model, even to the German-inspired National Revolutionary Army (probably part of the reason why that shifted from a German to a more Soviet-centric model after the end of the Civil War). Extremely influential, possibly rivaling the enormous influence of the Napoleonic French and, before that, post-Colonial American military traditions.
I think it's super cool how you always contribute these less known facts and perspectives of the Cold War. Did you study it ever, or is it just personal experience and interest?
Re: Israel and Soviet, didn't the Soviets actually pursue an alliance with Israel right at the start? And of course the kibbutzes were pretty socialist in concept.
Back on topic, I was looking for a word somehow a play or expansion on weeaboo, obviously. Weeabooska? Enh.
Were all US torpedoes plagued with problems or just certain models? I seem to recall US submarines racking up a rather large number of sunk shipping, which would be somewhat more impressive if they did it with defective torpedoes.
Were all US torpedoes plagued with problems or just certain models? I seem to recall US submarines racking up a rather large number of sunk shipping, which would be somewhat more impressive if they did it with defective torpedoes.
Germany's actions in the East had more to do with racial ideology than how much of a fight nations put up.
You're statement came across as "if the Poles didn't resist so much, occupation would of been easier for them" (if that's not what you intended I'm sorry, that's how it came across). In truth however, German occupation of the East was never going to be easy for anyone due to Nazi idea's about race and living space.
No I know there was never any chance of them being nice to Eastern Europe.
However, in aryan Scandinavia Germany went a bit more gently (relatively speaking and all) but it was a fear in Denmark at the time that too much resistance might make them want to do what they did in Poland.
Not saying Poland deserved anything or brought anything upon itself, just that it served as a demonstration of how awful an occupation could be. And Denmark was in a situation where that could be avoided, was the argument supporters of cooperation made.
Ah okay. The way I read your orginal post didn't indicate that. I'm sorry.
Being just in the process of reading "the Guns of August" the Danish fear was pretty justified. The German Army of WWI became pretty infamous in Belgium for their tendency to shoot hostages at the slightest provocation. Said provocation didn't even have to be a real attack. It wasn't as massive as "the Rape of Belgium" propaganda said, but was on a much larger scale then Germans would admit to postwar.
The Germans would take hostages in every village they occupied. Usually the Burgomeister(Mayor), local priest and local notables(usually aristocrats). At the first hint guerrilla attack, they would kill the hostages and take new ones(usually burning buildings suspected of harboring guerrillas). That's if the Germans didn't just burn down the village wholesale.
The Guns of August mention that the Germans often used the post hoc justification that the son of the Burgomeister had been caught shooting at German troops. They apparently used the excuse so often that the author joked that the son of Burgomeisters where all trained assassins.
Now apply that knowledge to Denmark that had just been invaded by a Germany run by people worse then WWI Germany. In their place I would probably have done the same thing.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
What's the word for a fan of the Red Army and communist resistance fighters? I think I'm slightly that (with necessary addendum that I find a lot of their actions and like 99% of the soviet leaders' actions reprehensible).
Though, I'm a bigger fan of the Black army of the Makhnovites, the FAI in Catalonia etc.
Guerrillas.
Haha, no, but almost every single post-war anti-colonial insurgency in the world cited in part the Red Army-organized partisans/Jewish partisans either for their tactics or their ideological narrative, or both. Certainly every leftist-aligned movement. Even though the partisans themselves had often mixed success (since so many of them were actual servicemen and servicewomen, the line between partisan and simply covert military operations gets very blurred and vague). The Israelis and many other countries, for example, used Volokolamsk Highway by B. Momyshuly (a Kazakh officer in the Red Army) as training and then military guides when they transitioned from guerrillas into regular armies. The Israelis in particular treated the book as gospel, and it was translated to Hebrew as early as 1946 (kind of odd given the state of Israeli-Soviet relations in the future).
Certainly in the Sinophone world (on both sides of the strait), the Red Army partisans were an extremely influential model, even to the German-inspired National Revolutionary Army (probably part of the reason why that shifted from a German to a more Soviet-centric model after the end of the Civil War). Extremely influential, possibly rivaling the enormous influence of the Napoleonic French and, before that, post-Colonial American military traditions.
I think it's super cool how you always contribute these less known facts and perspectives of the Cold War. Did you study it ever, or is it just personal experience and interest?
Re: Israel and Soviet, didn't the Soviets actually pursue an alliance with Israel right at the start? And of course the kibbutzes were pretty socialist in concept.
Back on topic, I was looking for a word somehow a play or expansion on weeaboo, obviously. Weeabooska? Enh.
I believe Russaboo is the most common term.
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
What's the word for a fan of the Red Army and communist resistance fighters? I think I'm slightly that (with necessary addendum that I find a lot of their actions and like 99% of the soviet leaders' actions reprehensible).
Though, I'm a bigger fan of the Black army of the Makhnovites, the FAI in Catalonia etc.
Guerrillas.
Haha, no, but almost every single post-war anti-colonial insurgency in the world cited in part the Red Army-organized partisans/Jewish partisans either for their tactics or their ideological narrative, or both. Certainly every leftist-aligned movement. Even though the partisans themselves had often mixed success (since so many of them were actual servicemen and servicewomen, the line between partisan and simply covert military operations gets very blurred and vague). The Israelis and many other countries, for example, used Volokolamsk Highway by B. Momyshuly (a Kazakh officer in the Red Army) as training and then military guides when they transitioned from guerrillas into regular armies. The Israelis in particular treated the book as gospel, and it was translated to Hebrew as early as 1946 (kind of odd given the state of Israeli-Soviet relations in the future).
Certainly in the Sinophone world (on both sides of the strait), the Red Army partisans were an extremely influential model, even to the German-inspired National Revolutionary Army (probably part of the reason why that shifted from a German to a more Soviet-centric model after the end of the Civil War). Extremely influential, possibly rivaling the enormous influence of the Napoleonic French and, before that, post-Colonial American military traditions.
I think it's super cool how you always contribute these less known facts and perspectives of the Cold War. Did you study it ever, or is it just personal experience and interest?
Re: Israel and Soviet, didn't the Soviets actually pursue an alliance with Israel right at the start? And of course the kibbutzes were pretty socialist in concept.
I read a lot, a lot, in grad school. And before that. Possibly a reflection that I grew up in the first generation not to experience the White Terror intellectually in Taiwan (since it ended just as I came into school), and thus, reading about these sort of topics was possible where it had not been previously.Unlike a lot of Yanks, I've noticed, I'm actually more focused on post-war Soviet history than the war period itself (and there are people who can prattle about the Second World War much, much better than me in this thread). In particular, I've been interested in ethnic minorities in the USSR and Soviet national delimitation and Korenitzatsiya, as opposing forces to the old practice of traditional Russian Chauvinism, and the legacy of that movement.
Slightly less commonly, I have friends from the CIS countries, who I badger constantly for "on the street" information. I strongly suggest anyone who's interested in Russian civil society or Eurasian politics in general to do the same, there are plenty of computers in Russia and people there speak much better English then we speak Russian. It was one of the first ways I learned just how fucked up the 1993 Constitutional Crisis in the Russian Fed. was, since at the time internationally, it was almost uniformly reported as a good thing. How you spin President Yeltsin calling a couple platoons of tanks into Moscow to fire live ammunition at an occupied parliament as a good thing, I still don't know, but the world press--even the good world press, like BBC--pretty much bought it hook, line and sinker. By contrast, a lot of people in-country were super-angry about it at that moment, and people have only gotten more angry about it since then.
I can also prattle endlessly about India and Pakistan, particularly from the 1940s to 1971 (I wrote my graduate thesis on it) but for some reason, that doesn't get a name. Hindaboo? Don't know why. If there's a Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi thread somewhere, I'll probably prattle in it for a while. Am I a Russoboo or a Slavaboo because people tend to dwell on Russia way, way more then they do about India? Possibly. Heck, my only escape from the "Weaboo" label is the fact that I lived in Japan before I lived in the United States, and Japanese culture much more closely resembles my own origins than American culture. Thus, I become a Yankeboo (if this is not a term already, I'd like to coin it).
Kibbutzs were, in fact, collective agricultural communities, yes (taking an old idea and giving it a Zionist twist, as you might expect). It's surprising that they still represent a significant contribution (9% of total industry, 40% of total agriculture) of the state of Israel itself. The USSR was the first country to formally recognize Israel as a nation (this is generally treated as being the second country, behind the United States, to begin diplomatic relations with Israel). In 1948, the Soviets also supported Israel in the first Israeli-Arab War, and the Israeli military was dependent on Eastern Bloc arms sales (which were all technically supposed to be approved by the USSR), but the issue of the "Refuseniks" and later Israeli-Arab conflicts (as Syria and, to a lesser extent, Egypt were friendly with the USSR) soured relations substantially. It may be a case of Israel actually having good relations with the USSR "in general" (in fact, Russo-Israeli relations right now are very good generally, with the enormous CIS-emigre population in Israel bridging the gap between the countries, and notably, Moscow publicly supported Israeli in the 2014 Gaza Conflict). But on the other hand, the United States represents Israel's great patron and very close ally (and will continue to represent that), dwarfing exchanges between Russia and Israel.
And now, I must get a large sewing needle and deflate my big head.
(with necessary addendum that I find a lot of their actions and like 99% of the soviet leaders' actions reprehensible).
This thread is really all about taking the most uncharitable possible reading of other peoples' posts I guess?
Just saying that any potential vilification that may be directed towards people who like the German WWII war machine automatically applies to USSR, and many other parties too.
What's the word for a fan of the Red Army and communist resistance fighters? I think I'm slightly that (with necessary addendum that I find a lot of their actions and like 99% of the soviet leaders' actions reprehensible).
Though, I'm a bigger fan of the Black army of the Makhnovites, the FAI in Catalonia etc.
I really enjoy the story of Tito, his partisans, and independent Yugoslavia.
And the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was fun to read about, although they were total bastards. However, they fought against every side in WW2. The Soviets, the Nazi's, even the Western backed Polish Underground State!
What's the word for a fan of the Red Army and communist resistance fighters? I think I'm slightly that (with necessary addendum that I find a lot of their actions and like 99% of the soviet leaders' actions reprehensible).
Though, I'm a bigger fan of the Black army of the Makhnovites, the FAI in Catalonia etc.
I really enjoy the story of Tito, his partisans, and independent Yugoslavia.
And the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was fun to read about, although they were total bastards. However, they fought against every side in WW2. The Soviets, the Nazi's, even the Western backed Polish Underground State!
I have developed very mixed feelings about the USSR. The main thing that changed my mind some was watching the U.S. turn stupid and brutal after 9/11.
Czarist Russia was a police state with a small middle class that oversaw a massive peasant state. The average life expectancy and standard of living surged under the communists (which is a point that often gets lost). While you could argue that things would have gotten even better if Russia had embraced a Western political and economic framework, its inarguable that communism was better for the vast majority of citizens than agrarian serfdom.
The other wrinkle was that the entire developed world invaded Russia after the Revolution, used agents to sabotage and undermine the communists from the start of the Revolution to the fall of the USSR, and generally menaced the nation for its entire existence. The communists inherited the Czarist police state in an era when they were under siege from all corners, and immediately began using it against their enemies.
Think about how one terrorist attack turned the U.S. into a pro-torture intelligence state and start to imagine what our political leadership would be like after decades of sustained attack and literal foreign occupation from literally every developed nation in the world. The Soviets were paranoid and brutal to dissidents not because they were crazy. Their enemies really were out to destroy them.
One of the biggest preoccupations in Western society was the eradication of communism everywhere it existed. The Nazis were formed on this basis (which is why they had so much initial support from conservatives in France, the UK and the United States). The surprising thing isn't that the Soviet Union produced a Stalin, its that subsequent leaders weren't all insane genocidal madmen.
You can look at the position of China and Cuba in the world today as an alternative example. Once the First World decided that it no longer needed to make the destruction of communism as its central mission, the world's communist nations stopped acting like lunatics (North Korea excepted).
It's okay, Phillishere. I have mixed feelings about the United States too. Teaching American history for 2 1/2 years as a TA probably hasn't helped.
Heck, I used to take the name 'Republic of China' for granted, but lately I've had mixed feelings about that too--and I don't think it's a brand that's going to survive either.
Let's not pretend that Russia/USSR is any sort of a victim here. They've been shitting on everyone neighboring them for centuries, ever since they were traumatized by the Mongols. Great many people perceived them as a greater threat than the nazis, and as seen with the following cold war bullshit, for good reason.
The past is not any more an excuse for atrocities than being screwed over by WWI peace terms was an excuse for Germany.
I blame the History channel. Before it turned into the garbage it is now, it spent a good couple decades basically being the WWII channel. And that entails a lot of shows like "Planes of the Third Riech". I don't know how many of those shows I watched when I was younger.
And for the many laughably impracticable 'super-weapons' the Nazi's turned out, they had the first jet fighter, the first theater ballistic missile, the first assault rifle, the best tanks(excepting maybe the T34), the best single artillery piece ever produced*, a machine gun so good(the MG42) that the US basically just copied it and called it the M60. *not saying its better than what we have now, but an anti-air, indirect fire anti-infantry, and direct fire anti-armor weapon. All in a single platform at its time is bonkers. The 88 is basically the antithesis of all the stupid 'super weapons' they made. One super flexible platform.
In addition to whatever historic truth there was about the German weapon superiority, it also is needed to fulfill the allies WWII narrative. Because 'well we sat on our asses for like the decade leading up to WWII and even the first year of the war, and then got our teeth kicked in' kinda makes you look like idiots.
I was in Denmark for vacation and one of the museums I was at had a part about the Nazi Invasion/Occupation and Resistance. It's a very weird version of WWII to see with a US perspective. Their entire armed forces took 41 casualties during the invasion. The collection took great pains to explain how much larger and better equipped the German forces were, and how Denmark had no choice but to surrender. The invasion was April 9th 1940 and lasted 6 hours before the Danes surrendered, Germany invaded Poland the previous September.
So 'Germans with massively superior weapons' is a more comfortable narrative to have rather than. 'We had plenty of warning and time to prepare and just decided it wasn't worth fighting against literal Nazis'
In addition to the Danish army being laughably tiny compared to the German war machine, the Danish landscape is also supremely ill-suited to any form of defensive guerilla war, consisting mostly of flat, open fields. Unlike, say, Norway which fought back with a lot more success and ferocity.
But apart from that, a lot of right of centre politicians had some sympathy for Germany, and there was an understanding the occupation would be, as occupations go, relatively friendly (the aforementioned polish occupation and its horrors served as a good demonstration of why you'd want to not make too much of a fuss).
Resistance didn't really get going until Germany attacked the USSR and all the Danish communists went underground (Danish authorities turned over their illegal records of communists to the Germans) - they were the biggest part of the freedom fighters, followed by conservatives. Venstre (the farmer party) and the social democrats mostly supported the policy of co-operation.
Being on formally good terms with Germany did enable some good things though, notably the smuggling of the majority of Danish Jew to neutral Sweden.
It's just generally part of the Phoney War though. With 6 months to prepare and mobilize(assuming they had never looked at the Wehrmacht and went..hmm might be something to worry about until it invaded Poland), the Danish Armed forces couldn't have mounted a defense to at least make it protracted and costly invasion? I mean there are single snipers who inflicted several times the kill counts the danish army managed.
A park in a city of ~18k people that I ran a race in last week has a war memorial listing all the residents KIA from WWI onwards. It has 73 names listed for WWII. That a country would capitulate after 6 hours and 40 casualties, is just something I can't wrap my head around.
For all the advantages of the German war machine, I'd argue it was primarily a lack of will to fight-and in many cases an active willingness to cooperate- that lead to these days/hours invasions. But "look at this insurmountable tech advantage" is much more palatable narrative.
I at least will recognize that the USSR mostly won the dick measuring contest nicknamed the Space Race. The U.S. Might crow about how they put a man on the moon, but the USSR hit nearly every other checkpoint before the U.S.
I blame the History channel. Before it turned into the garbage it is now, it spent a good couple decades basically being the WWII channel. And that entails a lot of shows like "Planes of the Third Riech". I don't know how many of those shows I watched when I was younger.
And for the many laughably impracticable 'super-weapons' the Nazi's turned out, they had the first jet fighter, the first theater ballistic missile, the first assault rifle, the best tanks(excepting maybe the T34), the best single artillery piece ever produced*, a machine gun so good(the MG42) that the US basically just copied it and called it the M60. *not saying its better than what we have now, but an anti-air, indirect fire anti-infantry, and direct fire anti-armor weapon. All in a single platform at its time is bonkers. The 88 is basically the antithesis of all the stupid 'super weapons' they made. One super flexible platform.
In addition to whatever historic truth there was about the German weapon superiority, it also is needed to fulfill the allies WWII narrative. Because 'well we sat on our asses for like the decade leading up to WWII and even the first year of the war, and then got our teeth kicked in' kinda makes you look like idiots.
I was in Denmark for vacation and one of the museums I was at had a part about the Nazi Invasion/Occupation and Resistance. It's a very weird version of WWII to see with a US perspective. Their entire armed forces took 41 casualties during the invasion. The collection took great pains to explain how much larger and better equipped the German forces were, and how Denmark had no choice but to surrender. The invasion was April 9th 1940 and lasted 6 hours before the Danes surrendered, Germany invaded Poland the previous September.
So 'Germans with massively superior weapons' is a more comfortable narrative to have rather than. 'We had plenty of warning and time to prepare and just decided it wasn't worth fighting against literal Nazis'
In addition to the Danish army being laughably tiny compared to the German war machine, the Danish landscape is also supremely ill-suited to any form of defensive guerilla war, consisting mostly of flat, open fields. Unlike, say, Norway which fought back with a lot more success and ferocity.
But apart from that, a lot of right of centre politicians had some sympathy for Germany, and there was an understanding the occupation would be, as occupations go, relatively friendly (the aforementioned polish occupation and its horrors served as a good demonstration of why you'd want to not make too much of a fuss).
Resistance didn't really get going until Germany attacked the USSR and all the Danish communists went underground (Danish authorities turned over their illegal records of communists to the Germans) - they were the biggest part of the freedom fighters, followed by conservatives. Venstre (the farmer party) and the social democrats mostly supported the policy of co-operation.
Being on formally good terms with Germany did enable some good things though, notably the smuggling of the majority of Danish Jew to neutral Sweden.
It's just generally part of the Phoney War though. With 6 months to prepare and mobilize(assuming they had never looked at the Wehrmacht and went..hmm might be something to worry about until it invaded Poland), the Danish Armed forces couldn't have mounted a defense to at least make it protracted and costly invasion? I mean there are single snipers who inflicted several times the kill counts the danish army managed.
A park in a city of ~18k people that I ran a race in last week has a war memorial listing all the residents KIA from WWI onwards. It has 73 names listed for WWII. That a country would capitulate after 6 hours and 40 casualties, is just something I can't wrap my head around.
For all the advantages of the German war machine, I'd argue it was primarily a lack of will to fight-and in many cases an active willingness to cooperate- that lead to these days/hours invasions. But "look at this insurmountable tech advantage" is much more palatable narrative.
It's not just an insurmountable tech advantage though. It's an insurmountable everything advantage. With no terrain and a 2-1 disadvantage in sheer numbers (to say nothing of the quality of those troops) and Denmark had absolutely no chance of stopping or really even slowing Germany down much.
Let's say - hypothetically - that the Danes had resisted.
Six months isn't really enough time to do much of anything. You aren't going to tool up an arms industry, and you're not getting substantial support from anywhere in that time. You don't have enough time to build substantial fortifications (and, after watching France, it would probably be pointless anyways).
So you're resisting several divisions - the Germans would probably have invaded with more than two or three divisions if they expected resistance - with about a division of troops, many of them under-equipped. Your army is barely trained (even a crash program can't train up an army in six months).
When the Germans invade, your people get slaughtered, maybe kill a couple hundred or even a thousand Germans. For what? You maybe slowed them down by a few hours or days. There's nothing to hold out for - help isn't coming - and you have fairly good reason to expect moderately good treatment if you don't resist.
In that situation, the only sensible thing to do is try and get the best possible terms in your surrender.
I blame the History channel. Before it turned into the garbage it is now, it spent a good couple decades basically being the WWII channel. And that entails a lot of shows like "Planes of the Third Riech". I don't know how many of those shows I watched when I was younger.
And for the many laughably impracticable 'super-weapons' the Nazi's turned out, they had the first jet fighter, the first theater ballistic missile, the first assault rifle, the best tanks(excepting maybe the T34), the best single artillery piece ever produced*, a machine gun so good(the MG42) that the US basically just copied it and called it the M60. *not saying its better than what we have now, but an anti-air, indirect fire anti-infantry, and direct fire anti-armor weapon. All in a single platform at its time is bonkers. The 88 is basically the antithesis of all the stupid 'super weapons' they made. One super flexible platform.
In addition to whatever historic truth there was about the German weapon superiority, it also is needed to fulfill the allies WWII narrative. Because 'well we sat on our asses for like the decade leading up to WWII and even the first year of the war, and then got our teeth kicked in' kinda makes you look like idiots.
I was in Denmark for vacation and one of the museums I was at had a part about the Nazi Invasion/Occupation and Resistance. It's a very weird version of WWII to see with a US perspective. Their entire armed forces took 41 casualties during the invasion. The collection took great pains to explain how much larger and better equipped the German forces were, and how Denmark had no choice but to surrender. The invasion was April 9th 1940 and lasted 6 hours before the Danes surrendered, Germany invaded Poland the previous September.
So 'Germans with massively superior weapons' is a more comfortable narrative to have rather than. 'We had plenty of warning and time to prepare and just decided it wasn't worth fighting against literal Nazis'
In addition to the Danish army being laughably tiny compared to the German war machine, the Danish landscape is also supremely ill-suited to any form of defensive guerilla war, consisting mostly of flat, open fields. Unlike, say, Norway which fought back with a lot more success and ferocity.
But apart from that, a lot of right of centre politicians had some sympathy for Germany, and there was an understanding the occupation would be, as occupations go, relatively friendly (the aforementioned polish occupation and its horrors served as a good demonstration of why you'd want to not make too much of a fuss).
Resistance didn't really get going until Germany attacked the USSR and all the Danish communists went underground (Danish authorities turned over their illegal records of communists to the Germans) - they were the biggest part of the freedom fighters, followed by conservatives. Venstre (the farmer party) and the social democrats mostly supported the policy of co-operation.
Being on formally good terms with Germany did enable some good things though, notably the smuggling of the majority of Danish Jew to neutral Sweden.
It's just generally part of the Phoney War though. With 6 months to prepare and mobilize(assuming they had never looked at the Wehrmacht and went..hmm might be something to worry about until it invaded Poland), the Danish Armed forces couldn't have mounted a defense to at least make it protracted and costly invasion? I mean there are single snipers who inflicted several times the kill counts the danish army managed.
A park in a city of ~18k people that I ran a race in last week has a war memorial listing all the residents KIA from WWI onwards. It has 73 names listed for WWII. That a country would capitulate after 6 hours and 40 casualties, is just something I can't wrap my head around.
For all the advantages of the German war machine, I'd argue it was primarily a lack of will to fight-and in many cases an active willingness to cooperate- that lead to these days/hours invasions. But "look at this insurmountable tech advantage" is much more palatable narrative.
The danish army inflicted around 200 casualties on the German invasion. Which wasn't bad, all things considering.
Its just that the decade before the war was the great depression and defense spending hadn't been a priority since WWI. Most of the Danish army was woefully under-equipped, No tanks, no armored cars, no anti-tank weapons, no heavy artillery, no real anti-aircraft artillery, No modern warships, no subs, no radar and no real stockpiles of any sort. That is a lot of no's
The only way to remedy that was to buy from the major powers Britain, France or Germany, since they where the only that actually produced that stuff. Which once the war started was a no-go for obvious reasons.
The Navy was mostly pre-WWI ships, the air force was biplanes and the army mostly infantry. The only real thing the Danish army could have done was entrench into foxholes, but even that would have failed against tanks and artillery.
BTW Danish film just released a movie called April 9th. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3542188/?ref_=nv_sr_1
It deals with an infantry bicycle platoon during the invasion. I have seen it and its good, if you ever get the chance I would recommend it. Its based on interviews of real soldiers(though with fictional equivalents in the movie). One thing I learned in the movie was that they only issued 40 rounds of ammunition to each soldier. The end has the real soldiers talk Band of Brothers style.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
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jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
In I think the 19th century a politician of the Danish Radical party (social-liberals, smallholders allied with city progressives) uttered the famous words in a debate on defence: "what's the use".
As always in more recent times, the enemy we feared was Germany, but already at that point some people realized we had no real chance of fighting their much, much larger and more modern army.
Much later, In the 1970s, there was a sort of right wing protest party, the Progress Party (at the outset their main thing was zero tax, but along the way they also became the party of opposition to immigration and just general bigotry). They proposed replacing the entire Danish defence with an answering machine saying 'we surrender' in Russian. Since, again, resistance was futile.
jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
Oh yeah, Denmark was also neutral until the invasion, which was another reason it came as a surprise - I think Germany respected neutrality pretty much everywhere else?
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Anybody sitting in a Starbucks posting on their smartphones can thank Heddy right now. As should everyone else.
Japan had actually comprehensively augmented its torpedo arsenal before and through the war, including creating the famous "Long Lance" (an American name for it) oxygen-powered torpedo--as that was a ship-to-ship torpedo, submarine and aircraft variants were also designed. Hardly perfectly, but leaps and bounds over other country's efforts. If memory serves, the Soviet Union and Germany both put pretty serious investment into electrically-driven (as oppose to steam) torpedoes, and came up with similar results.
The Germans eventually relied extremely heavily on the G7e torpedo (towards the end of the U-boat campaign, I think something like 80% of torpedoes used were electric), which originally had a few issues (and thus, the WWI-era steam-driven torpedo was preferred). In particular, the magnetic triggers on both torpedoes left a lot to be desired in 1939 but this was corrected surprisingly quickly (impact triggers were used in the meantime, as anyone who's played Silent Hunter III can attest).
The USSR eventually obtained a G7e torpedo by means of capture (again, lots of duds), but did not reverse-engineer it, surprisingly, preferring their domestic recently-completed ET-80 (like the Germans, they were relying heavily on steam-powered WWI torpedoes). Unlike the Germans, the Soviets never really committed to magnetic fuses and preferred impact fuses, which helped for reliability. Of course, the Soviet submarine navy could only do so much when literally the whole of the western half of the country was getting burned to the ground, so it was never a high priority as you saw in the Pacific War or in the Atlantic Theater. Case in point, the USSR designed the K-Class of cruising submarines, larger than the German Type IX U-Boats (that could hunt of the coast of North America)--and built a total of 12 (as oppose to the almost 300 Type IX boats Germany built). Which is why we generally don't think much about Soviet submarines during the war.
I like both ships. The point is, of course, TIE Fighter is best Star Wars game.
Followed by Dark Forces II. And I guess KOTOR.
In addition to the Danish army being laughably tiny compared to the German war machine, the Danish landscape is also supremely ill-suited to any form of defensive guerilla war, consisting mostly of flat, open fields. Unlike, say, Norway which fought back with a lot more success and ferocity.
But apart from that, a lot of right of centre politicians had some sympathy for Germany, and there was an understanding the occupation would be, as occupations go, relatively friendly (the aforementioned polish occupation and its horrors served as a good demonstration of why you'd want to not make too much of a fuss).
Resistance didn't really get going until Germany attacked the USSR and all the Danish communists went underground (Danish authorities turned over their illegal records of communists to the Germans) - they were the biggest part of the freedom fighters, followed by conservatives. Venstre (the farmer party) and the social democrats mostly supported the policy of co-operation.
Being on formally good terms with Germany did enable some good things though, notably the smuggling of the majority of Danish Jew to neutral Sweden.
One of the bigger open secrets of WWII is that, in pretty much every case, the bulk of the resistance in the conquered European nations and inside Germany itself came from communists. This also meant that the postwar Allied occupations ended up putting Nazi collaborators back in charge, because the groups that were helping the Allies during the war were made up of communists.
It's one of those inconvenient truths that got buried in the Cold War.
Um, let's not blame resistance to the Nazi regime for Nazi war crimes.
All ships have flammable components in the inside. Machinery grease, oil, bunker fuel, furniture, books and manuals, the list goes on. You are correct that the big failing point was the Japanese damage control doctrine.
The IJN maintained a separate Damage Control team on each ship. These were specialists and received the majority of the training. They were, however, very small in number. I don't have my books nearby but it was something like 20-40 guys on a major warship. Out of a crew of 1,000 plus. The USN approach is that every one is responsible for damage control and everyone is trained for it. There are a few more differences that ended up making huge differences when a fire, explosion, or flooding happen. Japanese Carriers tended to have enclosed hangar spaces under the flight deck. This does give the planes and crew some protection but I think the main idea for it was to prevent corrosion (Salt water corrosion is still very much a thing for modern naval equipment today). The Japanese Navy had limited resources and probably wanted to save on maintenance as much as possible to get as much use as possible out of their limited stocks. It's been pretty well established that the Americans had much, much greater industrial capacity than the Axis. They could just build more planes or spare parts to replace damages.
A bomb hit on the flight deck could penetrate into the hangar and if it did there were all kinds of nasty things there that do not react well to fire and explosions. Fueled up planes, bombs, torpedoes, avgas, fuel lines. All packed into a tiny, enclosed metal box. This is also where the damage control teams are stationed.
American carriers actually have open hangar spaces specifically for this eventuality. A plane or some munitions catches on fire? Over the side it goes! The trade off is that everything rusts faster.
The IJN's damage control equipment was based off of their bad doctrine. The equipment was satisfactory but in limited quantity due to their tiny DC parties. In the end, the IJN's awful damage control doctrine did in many of their ships. You'll get no argument from me.
Despite this, the IJN was the world's 2nd most powerful fleet (yes, I'd rank them over the British in World War 2). They had huge advantages in torpedoes, gunnery, optics (especially night optics)*, and trained aviators in the beginning of the war. Remember, they were having their way with both the USN and the RN combined for over 6 months.
* - High quality optics are good. Radar controlled gun systems are better. Guess which ones the Americans were developing and installing?
US torpedoes also under shot their targets because their running depth was calibrated based on more buoyant exercise torpedoes that had their warhead section filled with water instead of, you know, a 650lb warhead.
Oops! :rotate:
Wikipedia has a few amusing data points about the USS Sargo:
Fired 8 shots and missed. Figured out the depth issue for themselves, fixed it. Days later, fired another to no effect, and the skipper broke radio silence to bitch about the useless god damned torpedoes the Bureau of Ordinance saw fit to fill his boat with.
... and later they were nearly struck by a circular run of their own weapon.
That's the MK14 in a nutshell prior to 1943.
I wasn't?
I was saying the brutality and war crimes Germany committed in Poland was a big argument in Denmark for surrendering - wanting to avoid 'polske tilstande', Polish conditions/situation. One of the factors making the policy of co-operation a reality.
You're statement came across as "if the Poles didn't resist so much, occupation would of been easier for them" (if that's not what you intended I'm sorry, that's how it came across). In truth however, German occupation of the East was never going to be easy for anyone due to Nazi idea's about race and living space.
Though, I'm a bigger fan of the Black army of the Makhnovites, the FAI in Catalonia etc.
One of my favorite WWII facts: Canada had more naval vessels at the end of the war than it did officers at the start of the war.
Canada also had what was probably the world's fifth most powerful navy. It's commonly claimed that it was third, after the US and UK, but France and Russia seem to have had more ships by any measure you want to use. As far as I understand, Canada was also fourth or fifth in terms of its air force, behind the US, UK, and Russia, and potentially France.
Guerrillas.
Haha, no, but almost every single post-war anti-colonial insurgency in the world cited in part the Red Army-organized partisans/Jewish partisans either for their tactics or their ideological narrative, or both. Certainly every leftist-aligned movement. Even though the partisans themselves had often mixed success (since so many of them were actual servicemen and servicewomen, the line between partisan and simply covert military operations gets very blurred and vague). The Israelis and many other countries, for example, used Volokolamsk Highway by B. Momyshuly (a Kazakh officer in the Red Army) as training and then military guides when they transitioned from guerrillas into regular armies. The Israelis in particular treated the book as gospel, and it was translated to Hebrew as early as 1946 (kind of odd given the state of Israeli-Soviet relations in the future).
Certainly in the Sinophone world (on both sides of the strait), the Red Army partisans were an extremely influential model, even to the German-inspired National Revolutionary Army (probably part of the reason why that shifted from a German to a more Soviet-centric model after the end of the Civil War). Extremely influential, possibly rivaling the enormous influence of the Napoleonic French and, before that, post-Colonial American military traditions.
No I know there was never any chance of them being nice to Eastern Europe.
However, in aryan Scandinavia Germany went a bit more gently (relatively speaking and all) but it was a fear in Denmark at the time that too much resistance might make them want to do what they did in Poland.
Not saying Poland deserved anything or brought anything upon itself, just that it served as a demonstration of how awful an occupation could be. And Denmark was in a situation where that could be avoided, was the argument supporters of cooperation made.
The lack of South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, China and India on that list is problematic.
The list is as of 1945, not 2015.
Saying "the Nazis would react with horrible brutality to resistence" isn't equivalent to "blame(ing) resistance to the Nazi regime for Nazi war crimes".
Well, that, and Japanese high commands general lack of concern over casualties. They loved the romance of newer and better torpedoes and guns, sailors who didn't want to burn to death just deserved beatings until morale improved.
I think it's super cool how you always contribute these less known facts and perspectives of the Cold War. Did you study it ever, or is it just personal experience and interest?
Re: Israel and Soviet, didn't the Soviets actually pursue an alliance with Israel right at the start? And of course the kibbutzes were pretty socialist in concept.
Back on topic, I was looking for a word somehow a play or expansion on weeaboo, obviously. Weeabooska? Enh.
CCCPaboo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo
the short version is that the torpedo had problems, but most of the reason it was no good was a magnetic exploder that didn't get tested nearly enough
hitting hot metal with hammers
Ah okay. The way I read your orginal post didn't indicate that. I'm sorry.
The Germans would take hostages in every village they occupied. Usually the Burgomeister(Mayor), local priest and local notables(usually aristocrats). At the first hint guerrilla attack, they would kill the hostages and take new ones(usually burning buildings suspected of harboring guerrillas). That's if the Germans didn't just burn down the village wholesale.
The Guns of August mention that the Germans often used the post hoc justification that the son of the Burgomeister had been caught shooting at German troops. They apparently used the excuse so often that the author joked that the son of Burgomeisters where all trained assassins.
Now apply that knowledge to Denmark that had just been invaded by a Germany run by people worse then WWI Germany. In their place I would probably have done the same thing.
I believe Russaboo is the most common term.
- John Stuart Mill
WoW
Dear Satan.....
This thread is really all about taking the most uncharitable possible reading of other peoples' posts I guess?
I read a lot, a lot, in grad school. And before that. Possibly a reflection that I grew up in the first generation not to experience the White Terror intellectually in Taiwan (since it ended just as I came into school), and thus, reading about these sort of topics was possible where it had not been previously.Unlike a lot of Yanks, I've noticed, I'm actually more focused on post-war Soviet history than the war period itself (and there are people who can prattle about the Second World War much, much better than me in this thread). In particular, I've been interested in ethnic minorities in the USSR and Soviet national delimitation and Korenitzatsiya, as opposing forces to the old practice of traditional Russian Chauvinism, and the legacy of that movement.
Slightly less commonly, I have friends from the CIS countries, who I badger constantly for "on the street" information. I strongly suggest anyone who's interested in Russian civil society or Eurasian politics in general to do the same, there are plenty of computers in Russia and people there speak much better English then we speak Russian. It was one of the first ways I learned just how fucked up the 1993 Constitutional Crisis in the Russian Fed. was, since at the time internationally, it was almost uniformly reported as a good thing. How you spin President Yeltsin calling a couple platoons of tanks into Moscow to fire live ammunition at an occupied parliament as a good thing, I still don't know, but the world press--even the good world press, like BBC--pretty much bought it hook, line and sinker. By contrast, a lot of people in-country were super-angry about it at that moment, and people have only gotten more angry about it since then.
I can also prattle endlessly about India and Pakistan, particularly from the 1940s to 1971 (I wrote my graduate thesis on it) but for some reason, that doesn't get a name. Hindaboo? Don't know why. If there's a Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi thread somewhere, I'll probably prattle in it for a while. Am I a Russoboo or a Slavaboo because people tend to dwell on Russia way, way more then they do about India? Possibly. Heck, my only escape from the "Weaboo" label is the fact that I lived in Japan before I lived in the United States, and Japanese culture much more closely resembles my own origins than American culture. Thus, I become a Yankeboo (if this is not a term already, I'd like to coin it).
Kibbutzs were, in fact, collective agricultural communities, yes (taking an old idea and giving it a Zionist twist, as you might expect). It's surprising that they still represent a significant contribution (9% of total industry, 40% of total agriculture) of the state of Israel itself. The USSR was the first country to formally recognize Israel as a nation (this is generally treated as being the second country, behind the United States, to begin diplomatic relations with Israel). In 1948, the Soviets also supported Israel in the first Israeli-Arab War, and the Israeli military was dependent on Eastern Bloc arms sales (which were all technically supposed to be approved by the USSR), but the issue of the "Refuseniks" and later Israeli-Arab conflicts (as Syria and, to a lesser extent, Egypt were friendly with the USSR) soured relations substantially. It may be a case of Israel actually having good relations with the USSR "in general" (in fact, Russo-Israeli relations right now are very good generally, with the enormous CIS-emigre population in Israel bridging the gap between the countries, and notably, Moscow publicly supported Israeli in the 2014 Gaza Conflict). But on the other hand, the United States represents Israel's great patron and very close ally (and will continue to represent that), dwarfing exchanges between Russia and Israel.
And now, I must get a large sewing needle and deflate my big head.
Just saying that any potential vilification that may be directed towards people who like the German WWII war machine automatically applies to USSR, and many other parties too.
I mean, Stalin and Mao killed lots of people, but I think saying the entirety of the USSR/Russia is on par with the Nazi's is a little much.
I really enjoy the story of Tito, his partisans, and independent Yugoslavia.
And the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was fun to read about, although they were total bastards. However, they fought against every side in WW2. The Soviets, the Nazi's, even the Western backed Polish Underground State!
I have developed very mixed feelings about the USSR. The main thing that changed my mind some was watching the U.S. turn stupid and brutal after 9/11.
Czarist Russia was a police state with a small middle class that oversaw a massive peasant state. The average life expectancy and standard of living surged under the communists (which is a point that often gets lost). While you could argue that things would have gotten even better if Russia had embraced a Western political and economic framework, its inarguable that communism was better for the vast majority of citizens than agrarian serfdom.
The other wrinkle was that the entire developed world invaded Russia after the Revolution, used agents to sabotage and undermine the communists from the start of the Revolution to the fall of the USSR, and generally menaced the nation for its entire existence. The communists inherited the Czarist police state in an era when they were under siege from all corners, and immediately began using it against their enemies.
Think about how one terrorist attack turned the U.S. into a pro-torture intelligence state and start to imagine what our political leadership would be like after decades of sustained attack and literal foreign occupation from literally every developed nation in the world. The Soviets were paranoid and brutal to dissidents not because they were crazy. Their enemies really were out to destroy them.
One of the biggest preoccupations in Western society was the eradication of communism everywhere it existed. The Nazis were formed on this basis (which is why they had so much initial support from conservatives in France, the UK and the United States). The surprising thing isn't that the Soviet Union produced a Stalin, its that subsequent leaders weren't all insane genocidal madmen.
You can look at the position of China and Cuba in the world today as an alternative example. Once the First World decided that it no longer needed to make the destruction of communism as its central mission, the world's communist nations stopped acting like lunatics (North Korea excepted).
Heck, I used to take the name 'Republic of China' for granted, but lately I've had mixed feelings about that too--and I don't think it's a brand that's going to survive either.
The past is not any more an excuse for atrocities than being screwed over by WWI peace terms was an excuse for Germany.
It's just generally part of the Phoney War though. With 6 months to prepare and mobilize(assuming they had never looked at the Wehrmacht and went..hmm might be something to worry about until it invaded Poland), the Danish Armed forces couldn't have mounted a defense to at least make it protracted and costly invasion? I mean there are single snipers who inflicted several times the kill counts the danish army managed.
A park in a city of ~18k people that I ran a race in last week has a war memorial listing all the residents KIA from WWI onwards. It has 73 names listed for WWII. That a country would capitulate after 6 hours and 40 casualties, is just something I can't wrap my head around.
For all the advantages of the German war machine, I'd argue it was primarily a lack of will to fight-and in many cases an active willingness to cooperate- that lead to these days/hours invasions. But "look at this insurmountable tech advantage" is much more palatable narrative.
WoW
Dear Satan.....
It's not just an insurmountable tech advantage though. It's an insurmountable everything advantage. With no terrain and a 2-1 disadvantage in sheer numbers (to say nothing of the quality of those troops) and Denmark had absolutely no chance of stopping or really even slowing Germany down much.
Let's say - hypothetically - that the Danes had resisted.
Six months isn't really enough time to do much of anything. You aren't going to tool up an arms industry, and you're not getting substantial support from anywhere in that time. You don't have enough time to build substantial fortifications (and, after watching France, it would probably be pointless anyways).
So you're resisting several divisions - the Germans would probably have invaded with more than two or three divisions if they expected resistance - with about a division of troops, many of them under-equipped. Your army is barely trained (even a crash program can't train up an army in six months).
When the Germans invade, your people get slaughtered, maybe kill a couple hundred or even a thousand Germans. For what? You maybe slowed them down by a few hours or days. There's nothing to hold out for - help isn't coming - and you have fairly good reason to expect moderately good treatment if you don't resist.
In that situation, the only sensible thing to do is try and get the best possible terms in your surrender.
The danish army inflicted around 200 casualties on the German invasion. Which wasn't bad, all things considering.
Its just that the decade before the war was the great depression and defense spending hadn't been a priority since WWI. Most of the Danish army was woefully under-equipped, No tanks, no armored cars, no anti-tank weapons, no heavy artillery, no real anti-aircraft artillery, No modern warships, no subs, no radar and no real stockpiles of any sort. That is a lot of no's
The only way to remedy that was to buy from the major powers Britain, France or Germany, since they where the only that actually produced that stuff. Which once the war started was a no-go for obvious reasons.
The Navy was mostly pre-WWI ships, the air force was biplanes and the army mostly infantry. The only real thing the Danish army could have done was entrench into foxholes, but even that would have failed against tanks and artillery.
BTW Danish film just released a movie called April 9th.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3542188/?ref_=nv_sr_1
It deals with an infantry bicycle platoon during the invasion. I have seen it and its good, if you ever get the chance I would recommend it. Its based on interviews of real soldiers(though with fictional equivalents in the movie). One thing I learned in the movie was that they only issued 40 rounds of ammunition to each soldier. The end has the real soldiers talk Band of Brothers style.
As always in more recent times, the enemy we feared was Germany, but already at that point some people realized we had no real chance of fighting their much, much larger and more modern army.
Much later, In the 1970s, there was a sort of right wing protest party, the Progress Party (at the outset their main thing was zero tax, but along the way they also became the party of opposition to immigration and just general bigotry). They proposed replacing the entire Danish defence with an answering machine saying 'we surrender' in Russian. Since, again, resistance was futile.