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WW2 in Retrospect


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Interesting, but it’s slightly difficult to take the article seriously – given this howling error:

"The Allies worked together–the Sherman’s underpowered 70mm could be upgraded with a British gun because of interoperability of parts."

I have to confess that I lost interest at this point and couldn’t be bothered to check the accuracy (or otherwise) of the many other statistics quoted by the author.

Edited by jonPhillips
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Here's another one:

 

"And yet, the Germans only ever built a single aircraft carrier despite their need to support operations in North Africa, and built the Bismarck, a gigantic battleship (that cost as much as 20 submarines), which proceeded to sit in harbor and then be destroyed by air raids. "

 

I think they mean the Tirpitz.

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how about 1. attacked USSR and didn't win in 3 months  2.  declared war on USA.  3.  or the more basic catch-all:  easily blockaded country of 60M w no resources other than coal gambles everything on wars of conquest with hundreds of millions of people who have vastly superior resources and logistical capabilities.  This after having gambled and lost a previous war against hundreds of millions of people w vast resources just 20+ years before.  All the other stuff is details.  Fun details, but details.

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4 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

"And yet, the Germans only ever built a single aircraft carrier despite their need to support operations in North Africa, and built the Bismarck, a gigantic battleship (that cost as much as 20 submarines), which proceeded to sit in harbor and then be destroyed by air raids. "

Guy sounds like he has only a vague notion of what went on in the war. Lame. Has no business setting up a website proposing to educate when he himself is so poorly informed.

Michael

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13 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Here's another one:

 

"And yet, the Germans only ever built a single aircraft carrier despite their need to support operations in North Africa, and built the Bismarck, a gigantic battleship (that cost as much as 20 submarines), which proceeded to sit in harbor and then be destroyed by air raids. "

 

I think they mean the Tirpitz.

Hahahahahaha. 

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Something really peculiar to me is the major fixation on arms and hardware that these analysis have. Like don't get me wrong arms and production were crucial but like, there's never any mention of the problems like the mass famines that broke out everywhere or the politics behind apparently irrational decisions that were none-the-less entirely rational to impress coalition partners, keep alliances together, or push neutrals off the fence. 

Absolutely none of the powers could afford to completely disregard their civilian economy or war production would just halt. Yet because so few historians have sought to highlight the importance of this we're stuck with all those awful English histories of the war emphasizing battles and tanks over nations and people and then yeah you get stuff like this. I guess Tooze's book is hard to digest for most. 

 

 

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Important points. I think a lot of Churchill's decisions which had unfortunate consequences had rationales behind them that never gets talked about. Take the expedition to Greece as an example. Militarily it was a disaster, but it showed the world that Britain and the Commonwealth would stick by its allies come what may. I think this was important in light of the efforts he was making at that time to get Roosevelt to take an openly belligerent stance. And so it goes...

But to return to your opening statement, I think battles and production figures draw attention because they are relatively easily defined and quantified, whereas psychological factors seem so vague and slippery. Sociology is still an evolving science.

Michael

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17 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

Something really peculiar to me is the major fixation on arms and hardware that these analysis have.

There's a trend to look at the losing side and say they lost the war because they made stupid decisions and their tanks were bad. But the winning side also made bad decisions and their tanks also had many problems. Total war is about total production, and history is about hindsight.

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18 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

Absolutely none of the powers could afford to completely disregard their civilian economy or war production would just halt. Yet because so few historians have sought to highlight the importance of this we're stuck with all those awful English histories of the war emphasizing battles and tanks over nations and people and then yeah you get stuff like this. I guess Tooze's book is hard to digest for most. 

Most people aren't very interested in the topic. Many people who are interested in the topic are essentially dilettantes and don't dig deeper than the major battles that they hear about. Its like a three layer cake. Most people stop at the 1st (basic if any knowledge), the majority with any interest stop at the 2nd (Battles and W A R !), and then a minority actually make it to the third layer (Hey ho off to production figures I go).

 

Essentially most people get stuck at: Tigers are ****ing sweet.

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well, gosh, tigers are pretty sweet 😊.  And if Germany had 5,000 of them w plenty of fuel & ammo and well trained crews and unimpeded rail transport it would've really been interesting.  Yeah, wars are won at the higher levels of the cake but the fun is at the bottom layer, where the individual battles exist.

On the earlier comment, German aircraft carriers would've come in really handy in Barbarossa, surely changing everything.  Just more stuff for the British to sink.

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On 11/6/2019 at 2:25 PM, danfrodo said:

well, gosh, tigers are pretty sweet 😊.  And if Germany had 5,000 of them w plenty of fuel & ammo and well trained crews and unimpeded rail transport it would've really been interesting.  Yeah, wars are won at the higher levels of the cake but the fun is at the bottom layer, where the individual battles exist.

On the earlier comment, German aircraft carriers would've come in really handy in Barbarossa, surely changing everything.  Just more stuff for the British to sink.

... And ball bearings. Lots and lots of ball bearings.

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"Sociology" is a subject matter, not a method.  Some sociologists use scientific methods, some do not.  

A common reason that the "hard" sciences seem to be more scientific is that the problems studied are often easier, measurement more accurate and precise, and the subject doesn't change so rapidly over time.

 

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5 hours ago, Warts 'n' all said:

Given that this is meant to be a WW2 thread. Lets pay tribute to the women.

...Who served in a variety of jobs and did them well. Personally, I am in particular admiration of those ladies who flew airplanes of all sizes and complexity to assigned destinations, even across oceans.

Michael

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Almost every point in that article was either false, or completely missed the point. I took a look in the comments, and realized that they were aiming at the "Stab in the Back 2.0" crowd. They love to blame everything but the Wehrmacht for the loss in WW2.

11 hours ago, Warts 'n' all said:

Given that this is meant to be a WW2 thread. Lets pay tribute to the women.

Agreed. 

wwii-63-1024x772.jpg

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Yes, I skimmed through this .....er....stuff...until I saw the name Victor Davis Hanson. An idiot of the first water.

Quote

On the earlier comment, German aircraft carriers would've come in really handy in Barbarossa, surely changing everything.  Just more stuff for the British to sink.

LOL!

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