dbsapp

In 640 CE the Ukranians captured Alexandria after a long siege. According to the story, the conquering Ukranians heard about a magnificent library containing all the knowledge of the world and were anxious to see it. But the Getman, unmoved by this vast collection of learning, apparently stated 'they will either contradict the "BLOODLANDS", in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous.' The manuscripts were then gathered together and used as fuel for the 4,000 bathhouses in the city. In fact there were so many scrolls that they kept the bathhouses of Alexandria heated for six months.

To give you the real reason why Barbarossa failed - and to end this nonsense about potential uprising of Soviet people - I will give you some quotes from German sources from the first weeks of war: Yet, in spite of its success, the panzer group’s war diary includes the observation: Where the enemy appears he f i ghts tenaciously and courageously to the death. Defectors and those seeking to surrender were not reported from any positions. The struggle, as a result, will be harder than those in Poland and the Western campaign. In similar fashion the commander of the XXXXIII Army Corps in Kluge’s 4th Army, General of Infantry Gotthard Heinrici, wrote home to his family on 24 June that the Soviet solder fought ‘very hard’. Heinrici then concluded: ‘He is a much better soldier than the Frenchman. Extremely tough, devious and deceitful.’ As Bock noted for 24 June: The Russians are defending themselves desperately; heavy counterattacks near Grodno against the VIII and XX Army Corps; Panzer Group Guderian is also being held up near Slonim by enemy counterattacks. ne regiment of the division was assigned to assault the Soviet defences which resulted in a tenacious three-day battle. The company commander’s battalion alone suffered 150 casualties. In another infantry division from 4th Army, Lieutenant Georg Kreuter noted on 25 June: ‘We cannot move forward, everywhere there are small battles. Above all at night. .. Very close to me four off i cers have fallen. They will soon be buried together with other comrades in the town [Ozgmowicz]. Under no circumstances can this continue!!’ The following account comes from Colonel Erhard Raus of the neigh-bouring battle group: It was not so much the numerical superiority of the enemy which made the situation precarious for our command and troops, but the totally unexpected appearance of colossal tanks for which German tanks and anti-tank weapons appeared to be no match. ..Even the concentrated fire of the artillery and all other heavy weapons of the Kampfgruppe [Battle Group] was not able to keep off the steel pachyderms. Though enveloped in fire and smoke, they immediately started attacking and crushed every thing in their paths. Untroubled by the shower of heavy howitzer shells and earth falling down upon them, they attacked road block 121 in spite of the f l anking firee of the anti-tank guns from the wooded areas, rolled over the anti-tank guns dug in there and broke into the artillery area. About one hundred friendly tanks, one-third of them were Panzer IVs, now assembled for a counterattack. Some of them faced the enemy in front, but the bulk made an assault from the f l anks. From three sides, their shells hammered against the steel giants, but the effort to destroy them was in vain. On the other hand, very soon we had casualties ourselves. . On 26 June Halder stated in his diary ‘Army Group South is advancing slowly, unfortunately with considerable losses.’ The Operations Off i cer at OKH responsible for Army Group South further noted: ‘Russians are standing their ground excellently; down here there is exceptionally systematic command.’ Following the war from his off i ce in Berlin, Goebbels noted in his diary: ‘The f i rst big pocket is beginning to close...But they are f i ghting well and have learned a great deal even since Sunday.’76At the front, a liaison off i cer from Panzer Group 3 visiting the 20th Panzer Division reported: ‘Of the enemy there exists the impression that his infantry is many times numerically superior and very good to the bitter end. Colonel von Bis-mark used the expression “fantastic”.’ Already on 26 June Ernst-G¨ unter Merten, a soldier in 4th Army, noted the diff i culty of f i ghting in the densely wooded terrain. These bloody Russian forests! One loses the overview of who is a friend and who isanenemy.Soweareshootingatourselves. ..TheIIcompanywasencircledand came back with 55 men. ‘Worse than at Verdun!’ said Lieutenant-Colonel von L¨ ohneysen. h). Yet Hoth’s commentary on the motivation of enemy soldiers was equally enlightening and, if accu-rate, constituted a decidedly adverse development for the Germans. ‘The Russian soldier’, Hoth judged, ‘f i ghts not out of fear, rather idea. He does not want to return to the tsarist time.’

I had a game where 3 of my BTRs were pierced by one diagonal shot from M60.

That was Stalin's spies job, you don't understand.

The second one. They are the mix of Soviet and American campaigns.

Nothing is permitted to enter through iron curtain except books about God giving blessings to NKVD. Those who dare to smuggle literature on sufferings in Singapore end their days in GULAG.

This list sounds like medical diagnosis.

Apple users should stay at purgatory until all of their files not scanned by benevolent AI (for your safety only). Also the absence of the answer is an answer too.

"There’s still a lot of life left in CM2, so we’re not ceasing development on it, but we are keeping our own expectations more modest than we have in the past". Doesn't sound like there will be CM3 engine anytime soon.

Yesterday I completed the first mission of US campaign. After Soviet campaign It felt like chatting with human being after cruel experiments at alien flying saucer.

We fought on the opposite sides, but I salute you lol

Chamberlain was all along in favor of alliance with Hitler and never hid the sympathy for mad Andy, so I'm not surprised.

Lets put it in this way: this understanding is rather far from reality. This thread is called "Book Recommendations", so I will follow the thread's name. If you are interested in what actually happened in 30s and why it all became what it became I highly recommend to read: "1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War II" by Michael Jabara Carley.

If you don't like Molotov I can quote Churchill on the subject of his pact with Ribbentrop: "What is the second event of this first month? It is, of course, the assertion of the power of Russia. Russia has pursued a cold policy of self-interest. We could have wished that the Russian Armies should be standing on their present line as the friends and allies of Poland, instead of as invaders. But that the Russian Armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace. At any rate the line is there, and an Eastern Front has been created which Nazi Germany does not dare assail. When Herr von Ribbentrop [German Foreign Minister] was summoned to Moscow last week, it was to learn the fact, and to accept the fact, that the Nazi designs upon the Baltic states and upon the Ukraine must come to a dead stop. I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a middle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest. It cannot be in accordance with the interest or safety of Russia that Germany should plant itself upon the shores of the Black Sea, or that it should overrun the Balkan states and subjugate the Slavonic peoples of Southeastern Europe. That would be contrary to the historic life interests of Russia. But here these interests of Russia fall into the same channel as the interests of Britain and France. None of these three powers can afford to see Rumania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and above all Turkey, put under the German heel".

What's that - official designe notes or list of bugs found by players?

In this regard I've made myself clear already:

No politician did more to delay the commitment to send a British expeditionary force to the continent than Neville Chamberlain, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1931 to 1937 and Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940. There was no Ministry of Defence in the 1930s, and policy was laid down by the Cabinet after discussions by ministers in Cabinet committees or in the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID), which brought together ministers and the professional heads of the armed forces (the Chiefs of Staff) and senior civil servants. It was Chamberlain who persuaded the Cabinet in 1934 to give a lower priority to the army than to the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was he who initiated a review of the defence departments’ programmes that resulted in a Cabinet decision at the end of 1937 that the army’s first priority should be the air defence of Great Britain, and that the expeditionary force, or field force, as it was then known, should be equipped on a scale sufficient only for operations in defence of British territories and interests outside Europe. In fact, from the early 1930s, British leaders, fearful of further damaging their Depression-afflicted economy, fought to keep military spending to a minimum. They then used the country’s military deficiencies as an excuse to turn a blind eye to Germany’s increasing aggression and explosive rearmament, a flagrant violation of the 1919 Versailles Treaty. Although Britain’s appeasement toward Germany began before Chamberlain became prime minister in 1937, he was its high priest throughout. As chancellor of the Exchequer for most of the 1930s, he oversaw the government’s strict budgetary limits on rearmament. According to one associate, Chamberlain, a former businessman who had spent two years as mayor of Birmingham, thought of Europe as simply “a bigger Birmingham.”

Obviously, it's not true. British cabinet, as the rest of the European governments, perceived Hitler's Germany as a threat since 1933. In 1933 Germany announced its withdrawal from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference. As early as Nov 1933 - Feb 1934 British Defense Requirements Subcommittee identified Nazi Germany as the principal threat to British national security. In 1935 Anglo-German Naval Agreement was signed that premised Nazis to substantially increase their sea power. In 1936 the remilitarization of the Rhineland occurred that de facto cancelled Versailles agreements. In 1936 the Spanish civil war began and Hitler quickly sent his troops their. The British Cabinet was very concerned by Hitler’s rise to power, which they understood as a threat to European security and likely to lead to war in the foreseeable future. In late February 1933, reflecting on the possibility that Hitler would be able to consolidate Nazi rule in Germany, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Sir John Simon expressed the fear that “[Hitler’s] militant, very dangerous and incompetent administration will remain in charge of the centre of Europe in strict training for mischief.” In particular, he feared that the consequences would be “…an atmosphere of hostility, if not hostilities, which will militate with full force against the financial and economic recovery which is essential not only to peace but to the very existence of civilization". So it's quite clear that Germany was a threat in any possible way long before 1937.

The main target of Hitchen's critique is the so called guarantees to Poland, that Britain de facto couldn't fullfil. He writes that British policy in this reagard "was a great folly. It prevented us from getting Soviet cooperation at a far lower price than the one we eventually paid for it". When exiled Polish government asked for help against USSR, it was a plain absurd, as everything that this government had done before it. Even failed British realized it could be stupidiest move ever (just imagine consequences of Britain declaring war on Russia in 1939). Besides, the so called Russian "occupation" of Poland began only on 17 of September, when Poland as a state ceased to exist. There were basically 2 options: either leave the territory to Hitler, or take it yourself (as Molotov rightly pointed out in 1970s interview). As for the Chamberlain, I don't really remember what Hitchens says about his relations with the armed forces. But what I do recall from other sources is that it was Chamberlain who was Chancellor of the Exchequer since the beginning of 1930s and it was him who for all this time denied the proper funding of British military, including RAF.

I've read "Phony Victory", it's quite entertaining and well written, as always the case with Peter Hitchens. It's not a historical research per se, but more like a long essay on the decline and fall of British empire. For me the most valuable part is Hitchens's reflection on the the image of WW2 in British collective memory. While it's generally perceived as yet another English triumph, he argues, in fact it was a colossal disaster for the Empire that resulted in Britain becoming a second rate power. Hitchens notes, that neither Britain played a major role in WW2, nor it came out victorious from the conflict, despite what popular sentiment says. The text is full of resentment towards US that basically substituted bankrupt Britain as the world hegemon. It also have some kind words for Chamberlain, I recall, and some critics of overinflated - in Hitchens's view - image of Churchill. The large portion of the book is the condemnation of British areal bombardments of German cities with harsh rebuke addressed to Arthur Harris. You may, or may not, agree with "Phony Victory" - once again, it's more like an opinion and essay - but between two brothers I always preferred Peter to Christopher.

Militaty life 1940s: average life expectancy at battlefield is 4 minutes Military life in 2020s: playing Combat mission at least 4 hours a day

Hmm... "How to conceal civilian casualties?"

I serve the Soviet Union!

I remember this quote of Oscar Wilde from the billboard of my favorite Irish pub, that was closed several years ago: "Arguments are to be avoided, they are always vulgar and often convincing".