Black Jack Pershing II

Maybe it was the new girl -- never warms the pot.

To raise the insensitivity factor a bit more, are you talking about dots or feathers?

Sorry I missed it So you're saying that the Audie Murphy "To Hell and Back" routine was not SOP? I guess that's why he won the CMH. I was actually also referring to the Bow and Coax MGs, but had forgotten that they were .30s. Anyhoo, the M4 did throw off a decent amount of anti-personnel firepower.

Jason C- I agree with your analysis. One thing you do not focus on (and which I think CM models very well) is that the Sherman is an unbelievable good infantry support vehicle -- better than any tank the Germans fielded. The good speed, high ROF, fast turret, good HE ammo load and .50 cals make it a dominant force on the battlefield against infantry.

Very springy ground and/or giant trampolines might also work. You also neglect the German's pioneering work in hover-tanks which used superconductors and cold fusion to travel in the air. How do you think they got to Mars? Rockets? Nah -- the lift capacity was too small.

I would like so tune into Survivor if instead of just kicking the losers off the island, they ate them. That would be sweet.

Non Je ne regrette rien!

Ahh, good times.

I think this is more a result of the borg spotting highlighted in one of Kettler's posts. Once an AFV has KO'd its opponent it is immediately able to turn its fire on other AFV's in LOS. As I suspect you saw, once multiple guns are targetting a single AFV, its chances of KO'ing its opponents before being KO'd itself drop significantly. This then has a snowball effect (assuming all the AFVs in your test are in each other's LOS), and results in lopsided final outcomes.

John Kettler- Thanks -- I had not seen that word before.

Mr. Salt: Was bedeutet "lafette"? I am familiar with selbstfahrend or selbst angetrieben, but that one I haven't heard.

Zarquon- With all due respect, you are the one that is being illogical. You are taking my proposition that a summary execution may be morally justified in a particular instance, and drawing the conclusion that summary executions must therefore be must be justified in a wide range of instances. That does not necessarily follow. To the contrary, to be consistent, I need only admit that summary executions might be justified in comparable situations. And I think I can admit that. For example, if you (extremely) hypothetically transplanted Dachau to Alabama and substituted blacks for Jews, and KKK members for SS men, I would have a hard time seeing the injustice in a camp liberator shooting any hooded,white-robed individuals they happened to find on site. PS -- Kant's moral philosophy is banal. It took him page after turgid page to come up with the conclusion that we should live by the Golden Rule. Duh. His metaphysics, on the other hand, make him worthwhile.

Andreas: Do you have any reliable stats on the number of conscripts in the SS? Doing internet research on questions like this ends to lead to websites that I would really prefer not to have in my log. My understanding had always been that although the SS relaxed its entrance requirements as the war went on, it continued to attract volunteers. There may have been some conscription late in the war, but the absolute numbers were very low. Grimthane: I am curious what you think the purpose of a trial is, if not to ascertain facts.

I think I have been consistent, but I am quite willing to acknowledge that I have failed to elucidate my position clearly. In fact, I am. And I will reiterate, the point of a trial is to ascertain facts; if there is no dispute as to the facts, there is no need for a trial. As such, by summarily executing an SS member, admitted as such, there is no moral problem. There may well be reasons that we do not want to execute every SS member, but that does not give a free pass to everyone else.

FFKD- What is this new Soviet Union going to live off? How much food production is there from the Urals to the Pacific? The Red Army would not be consolidating toward their supply lines, they would be retreating away from them. If you want to talk historical hypotheticals, I would envision a different cold war, with the US and East Asia (and maybe England, depending on who develops the A-bomb first) on one side and Europe on the other.

We can argue all night as to whether this was a breach of the GC (did the GC contemplate that there would be an organization operating both as a military force and as a genocide detail?). My point is that the common understanding the term "war crime" is that it is something really, really bad (to use another legal phrase). The Dachau incident, while perhaps a breach of discipline and good order, was not "really, really bad." Not at all. I am just emphasizing the difference between justice and legality. The Lts in question may well have violated military regulations and, for all I know, may have had orders saying: "Whatever you do, don't shoot any KZ guards, we need them for questioning." Accordingly, I have no problem with their facing the legal consequences of their actions (although I personally would not impose any penalty knowing what I know now). You may recall in one of my initial posts, I said that I was disappointed that one of the Lts in question did not accept responsibility for his actions and made up an excuse. However, if I had been in that position and did what one of those Lts did, I think I could meet my maker with a clear conscience (at least regarding that ).

You miss my point. I am not arguing that soldiers should have been permitted, if not encouraged, to go out and execute SS men. I am arguing that SS volunteers are ipso fact deserving of the death penalty, to be imposed in an orderly manner in accordance with all prudent procedural safeguards. In the Dachau instance, however, I would be willing to waive the procedural niceties with a clear conscience.

I have no problem with an investigation. I also would not have a problem with the higher-ups saying that if such a thing happens again, there will be hell to pay and then following though if it did happen again. In fact, I would not be too upset if the Lts in question got court-martialed simply on principal (although on balance I would think they got a raw deal). The only thing I have a problem with is referring to this incident as a "war crime" or an "atrocity." To do so renders those notions meaningless. Out of curiosity, do you know whether there were indeed any courts-martial, and if so, what the results were? I'll check the internet, but hadn't seen anything on the thread thus far as to the actual outcome.

Posted by Zarquon: I agree (I think) with the first half of (a) and none of the rest. Analogizing to a criminal conspiracy, it is fair to attribute the crimes of the SS to each of its voluntary members (for the sake of argument, let's ignore any conscripted members who, AFAIK, represented a miniscule portion of the membership). Maybe that is where the disconnect is here. Each SS member willingly joined an organization one of the avowed purposes of which was the subjugation and/or annihilation of all Untermenschen. And unlike the nutters out in Idaho and Montana (not to cast any aspersions), theirs wasn't just talk; they actually took some significant steps towards achieving their goals. Accordingly, I would have absolutely no problem (from a moral perspective) with the execution of every member of the SS simply for having been a member. I would not need any evidence of atrocities committed by that particular member to hold him accountable for the SS's crimes as a whole. I disagree with the remainder of your assertions. I am fully aware of the need to maintain order and discipline in military units, and of the need to minimize the chances of inflicting harm on any innocents. As a result, I would never authorize willy-nilly executions as a general rule. In this situation, however, we know the facts and we know the consequences. The men executed were all SS personnel, and the executions did not set off a firestorm of "vigilantism" or any other widespread breakdowns in discipline or morale. Hence, (A) I cannot see how what the men did was wrong in a moral sense, since the men executed were indeed worthy of the death penalty, and ( I do not see the point in prosecuting these men legally on the "no harm, no foul" rule (to cite binding legal precedent ). Posted by Dandelion: I appreciate your attempt to understand my point of view. I wouldn't say that I have little faith in courts; rather, I dispute that the sole route to justice is through the courts. The purpose of a trial is, in essence, to determine facts. If the facts are not in dispute, there is no need for a trial. To my mind, there are precious few instances when one is justified in initiating summary executions -- walking into Dachau and finding SS men still there is one of those instances.

At least I've got that going for me. And that's General Pershing to you! Perhaps the electonic medium amplifies the petrificacity of my brutal views. I think I'm a veritable pussy[cat].

zmoney -- I see from your profile that you are a lawyer too

Andreas posted: Is that because you oppose the death penalty in all instances, or that you do not feel that being in the SS as a volunteer is wrong enough to merit death?

zmoney: To be fair, I think Kingfish was asking whether a summary execution of Mr. Demjanjuk (I assume that is who you are talking about) would have been appropriate, or if he should be entitled to a fair trial.

Of course I am playing a bit of devil's advocate here, but I at the end of the day, I am not going to lose any sleep over the fact that a bunch of SS were summarily executed at Dachau.

Don't worry, I have no intention of moving to Calgary. I did get a little chuckle when you accused me of having no understanding of the justice system. Perhaps the answer is that I do indeed have some understanding of matters legal, and that law and justice are by no means synonymous. I guess the fundamental point on which we disagree is that I believe that by voluntarily joining the SS (Waffen- or otherwise) your life should become forfeit. The fact that an SS member is also involved to some degree or another with a death camp is just an additional aggravating factor.