Why American squads "penalized"?

[Bastables]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by buddy:

PeterNZer et al,

I apologize for being a woosie earlier but I do believe the tone of the board has changed considerably since before the game was released. Nuff said about that.

In reference to where I heard it earlier, consider this snippet from an earlier post by BTS:<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No wrong again and again you see Lt leading coy, Capt leading Regt and Sgt or even Cpl leading Platoons or Zugs in the German army and the SS, also you should look to the number or level of officer support for the combative forces, even the lavish levels which the british had vs the germans do not compare to the sheer numbers allocated by the Americans.

Read some more, and not Ambrose

[Spook]

From your earlier comments, buddy:

Now the only thing I wanted to ask was would American troops be less hindered than Axis if they were leaderless - I have nothing to base this on specifically except books in general on WWII, history channel specials and the like where I got the impression that American troops generally took charge when their leadership got killed off whereas Axis troops in general were conditioned to take orders only and taking initiative was frowned upon.

Well, buddy, let me offer a recollection of a 50th-anniversary D-Day TV special that would correlate this notion of yours. During the D-Day documentary special, a guest historian narrated to the effect that "US leaders were take-charge and flexible enough to adapt to a changing situation, while his German counterparts were rigidly controlled by direct orders from Berlin." The historian further inferred that this was the case all the way down to the COMPANY level.

That historian might have even been Ambrose; I don't recall. But I turned off that TV documentary right there because I regarded such a broad-stroke generalization as pure BS. I didn't do this due to a wargamer's POSSIBLE knee-jerk notion that Germans should be considered innately superior in combat. I did this because the statement on TV flew in the face of what I've cross-referenced in studies of WW2 tactical combat for over 20+ years. It took a lot of time to come to my own opinions, they didn't come from a quick smattering of TV shows.

So don't become overly discouraged from the responses counter to yours here. Rather, take them as guidance that you approach WW2 tactical studies with a "clean slate" and then get out there to find some added reading on the subject. In fact, I think that Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers" isn't bad as one reference to read, as long as you don't take that whole book as gospel and recognize it to be mainly anedoctal in nature. Doubler's "Closing with The Enemy" is a better book at analyzing how US Army forces eventually adapted to the rigors of ground combat, although this is not a book to be taken alone as gospel either. Or if you want some books that were written DURING or right after WW2 with an eye on the personal view of the US "grunt", try Bill Mauldin or Ralph G. Martin or Ernie Pyle.

[This message has been edited by Spook (edited 11-22-2000).]

[Major Tom]

Germanboy, don't worry about it. I think that our game will be small enough not to piss off the Internet Gods.

Lanzfield, be careful in your Clinton bashing. Four years of Gore/Bush could make Clinton seem like a pleasent dream. I really feel bad for you Americans.

I actually think that the whole issue has really been cleaned up. It really has just turned into a picky war, with people arguing mere tidbits of 'what if this means that' sort of stuff. Best thing for everyone's sake is to let it lie.

[Guest machineman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Now the only thing I wanted to ask was would American troops be less hindered than Axis if they were leaderless - I have nothing to base this on specifically except books in general on WWII, history channel specials and the like where I got the impression that American troops generally took charge when their leadership got killed off whereas Axis troops in general were conditioned to take orders only and taking initiative was frowned upon.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

From what I remember two of the main aims of the post WWI German army, the small one they were allowed by the treaty of Versailles, were:

1)Creation of what was called the 'Thinking Fighting Man', in other words, a soldier that was NOT always blindly following orders, but could think on his feet, and adapt quickly to changing situations and conditions. Some officers were not completely in favor of this, and complained that this made the men unruly.

2)Strengthening of 'small unit bonding', or 'fight for your buddies' as much as possible. To this end as men were kept togther with others from the same area as much as could be done(Germans are not just 'germans', but are made up of a bewildering variety of peoples from fairly distinct little areas), and units were built up from the same 'core' when replacements were needed to keep cohesion.

This was all before Hitler came around. All in all, it made the Germans tougher on the small unit level, with more initiative and being better able to improvise and recover. The 'mindless Hitler automatons' thing is a bit of wartime Allied propaganda, AFAIK.

[This message has been edited by machineman (edited 11-22-2000).]

[PzKpfw 1]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PeterNZer:

John, that factor is represented by your playing, not by the way individual squads and units behave I would think.

Feel free to take a bocage scenario as brits and play badly, I'll take the Germans

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

let me elaborate, I don't believe in a national modifier, nor was that the reason for my post, I was useing an example to show that even vetran troops did not perform as expected or even as well as 'green' units at times. I think the CM model does just fine.

Regards, John Waters

------------------

"We've got the finest tanks in the world. We just love to see the

German Royal Tiger come up on the field".

Lt.Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. February 1945.

[Bastables]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lanzfeld:

Bastables.....

Your correct in saying that stereotyping is not in popular fashion nowadays. But I think at some point you have to admit that some of them are true. suspect everyone has an answer but the truth is nobody has an answer.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No! If I ever used stereotypes as the basis of my work I would be performing poor field work, and would summarily be kicked out of my post graduate work. Its not just non-popular it's wrong. Much like saying that blacks are closer to the apes and therefore more beastly, safe answer for providing a reason that they're like children and need to be kept in line! You also contradict yourself above; Stereotypes are true but there is no single truth? Never mind the simplistic take on post-modernist theory there is no single truth; there are many truths, which is a fairly concrete meta-theory aka single truth in itself. But perhaps you prefer to believe that whites can't dance, blacks are good at sport, and Latinos avoid confrontation. Dress it up through biology, race or culture and you'd still be wrong. I mean I could come up with a specious argument detailing how USA'er are more degenerate than the Europeans due to the fact that most colonists were failures in there original society aka the scum and the detritus and point to this bollocks as the reason for the problems within any of the colonies that the British created/annexed. But that’s bull for a number of reason because get this being successful in any society has less to do with being incompetence/competence than being in the right place at the right time. But hell those Irish jokes are all true they’re all morons. Or that Italians invariably have mafia connections, ignoring the fact that not even in Naples was the Mafioso so pervasive as they were in the East cost of the USA. Closer examination shatters stereotypes no matter how much easier life is made with them, they’re consciences soothers, programmed answers to complex questions.

------------------

From the jshandorf

"Why don't we compare reality to the game like Bastables likes to do all the time?"

Mr T's reply

"Don't touch me FOO!"

"Yes that's right Jerry, RUN, Run for your little lives because Tommy's gotten close enough to assault mhahahahah."

Nizam al-Mulk, (Order of the realm) In speaking of his superb disregard of maneuver warfare, in the destruction of OGSF hamsters who then carried on to flee the battle in their own notion of maneuver warfare. Tally HO!

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lanzfeld:

Germanboy....

You are telling me that you didnt mean to slam Ambrose with you comment? Please, you sound like Clinton. Look at that context and tell me more lies.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sure Lanzfeld, obviously you know much better than I do what I was thinking when I wrote it. How could I ever get the idea that I could know that better than you, the master of complex thinking and reflection. I just go back to worshipping at your feet now and accept the superiority of your intellect. Silly me.

I trust some other people's judgement (e.g. Bastables) enough to have reservations about Ambrose's work, but I have not (and will not) judge it until I have read it. Unlike you I am trying not to jump to conclusions. That ability of yours is certainly very helpful for a pilot (I would not want someone deliberating about whether to abandon a take-off while hurtling down the runway when a problem occurs), but believe me, you are out of your league here intellectually, as you have proven in all of your posts. Or you are just a common troll, which is equally possible. Probably a combination of both. Go back to living in your simple world, where all is black&white. And with that I am out of here.

Have a nice day.

------------------

Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 11-23-2000).]

[PeterNZer]

Buddy

Thanks for the clarification of your position, it was good to read what you were thinking

As you can probably see by now there are all sorts of issues with some of the generalizations you can read in history and popular history. It's good you thought to come and ask, (so many people don't ever think to question or discuss what they hear), what are your thoughts now?

LanzFELD

I called you stupid because you were being fairly self-contradictory and failed to justify your position. Perhaps I was exagerating a bit for effect

I have done a fair amount of reading of history and I say again that the Russians weren't as bad as you make out. In Guderian's recollections of the East Front alone he talks about how the Russians quickly developed their tactical and fighting abilities. ESPECIALLY after the Ukraine campaign. Furthermore I think you're confusing platoon-level issues with command-level issues.

The individual Russian soldier who has been well trained, equipped, motivated and led is pretty indistinguishable from any other nations soldier. If you want to make a case that for much of the war the Russian -army-, the command and leadership, failed to learn from its mistakes and take advantage of German mistakes then I and others will be more than happy to hear from you. I'd even say that early in the war you would be right, (since quality officers often weren't around or were in Gulags! And those at the front were freshly replaced peons of Stalin right?).

However, you are unclear as to whether you're talking soldiers or leaders.

Also I should note that noone here is arguing against the idea that armies could be inexperienced and innefective. This is simulated in CM with Green, Regular, Veteran etc clasifications. What folks object to is the whole-sale classification of a nation as exhibiting X or Y traits. What's your position here?

As for the Hitler comment, I think I'm fairly justified in saying that anyone who says that 'nation X exhibits these ingrained characteristics' has a philosophy similar to Hitlers. In fact, I didn't call you a Nazi, just that way of thinking and it's something we've seen throughout history, eg, the reasons for not letting black Americans' fight in WW2, etc etc. I added that comment in since it struck me as a slight irony to have this debate on a WW2 forum

So I guess, is it your opinion that in CM a certain country's soldiers should have certain modifiers? Or is it just that, excluding a debate on CM, that this was the case in WW2? Or are you asking for opinion/debate, which you have got.

PeterNZ

------------------

"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." George W Bush -Saginaw, Mich.,

Sept. 29, 2000

[This message has been edited by PeterNZer (edited 11-23-2000).]

[Walter]

Lanzfeld said:

'I love to make you boys type. Jump again will you?'

In this statement is the implicit acknowledgement that you are making your statements simply to get a rise out of the others on this board, even though you know your statements to be false. There is a word for doing that. It's 'trolling'. I think we're pretty much forced to acknowledge that you are nothing more than a troll trying to bait responses. I apologise for thinking you might apologise for your actions, silly me, thinking you might have something other than flamebait to type.

Cheers,

Walter R. Strapps

[tss]

Nationality modifiers is a can of worms. I'm one of those who believe that given two soldiers that have similar training, equipment, and leadership, they will perform in combat in a pretty similar way. Or to be more exact, I believe that differences between good and bad soldiers in one army are larger than between two good soldiers of two armies or two bad soldiers of two armies.

However, soldiers in different countries had different training and different doctrines, so there was differences. But again, this is nearly impossible to quantify correctly, because variance within an army is quite big.

I've been thinking about the Continuation War between Finland and Soviet Union. Right now I can identify only one quantifiable national difference between Finnish and Soviet soldiers: a Finn was much more afraid of being encircled than a Soviet.

If a Finnish company was encircled or threatened with immediate encircelment, it tried to break out as soon as possible while an encircled Soviet company would fortify its position and break out only if it became apparent that help was not coming.

The rest of differences are much harder to quantify. An average Finnish platoon showed more initiative than an average Soviet platoon, but how can we be sure that this was a national difference and not a case of Finns being better trained on average than Soviets? Also, good Soviet platoons showed more initiative than bad Finnish platoons.

For the Winter War the reason for the difference is clear: Soviet forces were very poorly trained. Also, Finns had a system that allowed junior leaders to identify the most effective soldiers quite reliably (but not inerrantly) and they could give automatic weapons to them. I mean the members of "Suojeluskunta" (Civic Guard) organization. Most of them had had military training regularly since they were 15-16 years old and they were very patriotic. Additionally, they knew from Soviet propaganda that they would be in deep trouble if the Red Army conquered Finland (being dubbed as a "people's enemy" was not very healthy under Stalin's rule) so they had even more motivation to stop Soviet attacks than others.

I think that the current CM systems would allow quite faithful modeling of Winter War, without any national modifiers. In the early part of the war most Finnish units would be regulars with a small dose of fanaticism while Soviets would be almost 100% conscripts. Later, Finns would be mostly veterans with fanaticism and Soviets would be about 90% conscripts and 10% mix of regular and veteran.

The situation of the Continuation War is much more complex.

- Tommi

[Chupacabra]

Tommi - well put, as usual. And I believe your first sentance put it well.

Without plunging into this muck with both feet, a few points.

1) Ambrose has his good points, but one must always be aware that he is not an unbiased source. He's a fantastic interviewer. He gets great material out of his interviewees. So it's a shame that he uses that material to make such highly suspect conclusions about American prowess. I'm extremely skeptical when people make claims using his works as evidence.

2) I will admit several differences between armies of different nations. For me the big ones are:

<UL TYPE=SQUARE> <LI> Doctrine

<LI> Training

<LI> Equipment

Doctrine can be followed or not by the CM player, so it's something of a non-issue, and training and equipment are modeled.

Any other differences between soldiers of different nations I am very skeptical of. I have simply seen no evidence that an average 18 yr-old in Feldgrau would react any differently to being cold and wet, or to seeing his buddy shot, or to being knocked on his back by a nearby explosion, than would an average 18 yr-old in khaki or serge.

I believe that anyone claiming otherwise is, at the very least, going to have to draw on sources somewhat more reliable than Ambrose or the History Channel.

------------------

Grand Poobah of the fresh fire of Heh.

[tss]

Chupacabra wrote:

2) I will admit several differences between armies of different nations. For me the big ones are:

<UL TYPE=SQUARE> <LI> Doctrine

<LI> Training

<LI> Equipment

It came to me that the training could be extended to include the background of soldiers. This is not much a nationality issue but there are some correlations. In particular, I'm thinking of the large forests of the Northern part of the Front. In Winter War Soviets sent the 44th Infantry Division to attack at Suomussalmi. The men of the division were relatively well-trained, for Red Army at the time. However, the men were from Ukrainian plains and the large forests were a Terra Incognita for them. They had no experience of finding their way in a forest and the maps were poor and scarce and worst of all, there were only few skis and fewer men who were used to them. The result was that the men of the division rarely wandered further than 100-200 meters from the road and the division got encircled and destroyed. The commander of the division and few other high-ranking officers were court-martialled and shot. Interestingly, the charge was "losing 39 field kitchens to the enemy" (I'm not certain about the exact figure).

Similarily, in 1941 a large portion of Germans that were stationed in Northern Finland were city boys from Berlin. They had absolutely no idea how one should live in forests. They didn't know how to make fire in poor weather and they too didn't know how to find one's way in forest. The result was that there were lots of cold and miserable Germans when the Autumn rains came.

But again, these are things that are very hard to quantify since there were also Germans who knew how to live in a forest.

- Tommi

[Maj. Bosco]

If we're talking about doctrine and military history the Germans actually measure up a bit better than the americans when it comes down to the platoon and company level. IIRC the saying "The best soldiers know when not to follow orders" is actually a Prussian saying from the time of Frederick II. The German army always gave their lower level officers lee-way, at least as far as doctrine is concerned. The Fuhrer Principle was a problem at the higher levels. When Hitler gave orders like "We will not give any ground. At all." Then the inflexibility came in.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Good discussion, and I hope that the bickering from earlier will not crop up again.

Besides the larger issues of training, doctrine, weapons, etc. influencing the character of a particular national force, we also need to keep in mind command level.

On the Eastern Front I would say that, in general, the Soviet senior level commanders were very good. The problem is that for a long time the forces under their command were not capable of acheiving the strategic goals due to tactical limitations. Guderian and others noted this very early on in the battles around Yelnia. The Soviet forces appeared to have the right idea about where and when to attack, but poor tactical communications and execution resulted in defeat more often than victory. And even when the objective was taken, the expense of men, material, time, munitions, etc. was often greater than it should have been.

As the war went on the tactical abilities of the Soviet forces improved. Dramatically. As Tommi described very well, this is still a generalization because there always is great variation within a nation's forces. To further Tommi's point about the Germans in forests...

One complaint I have seen from German officers is that they felt their pre-war forest training was totally inadequate. The number one reason cited was that Germans are too protective of its forests. So the Army was limited to a few areas, which meant reduced training opportunities because these were not many enough for the rather huge number of troops that needed to be trained.

The German officers did not feel this was much of an issue for the early campagins, but when they moved into central and northern areas of the Eastern Front they complained bitterly. I have even seen a few such reports stating that the German soldier was, in a way, "scared" of forests themselves. Not to mention forests with people shooting at each other. The Soviet forces, on the other hand, were regarded as being "masters of the forest".

So in the end...

Stereotyping is the quickest way to make a game depart from reality. Therefore, national modifiers are indefensible if they are based on sereotypes. Instead, the significant factors that differntiate one unit from another, in terms of qualty, need to be identified. Then these factors need to be examined to see what tangible elements contribute to making the attribute better/worse. Example...

We might look at something like fighting in forests and conlcude that it took a very special mindset to fight effectively in such conditions. So we would create a Forest Combat modifier. We would then have to figure out what subfactors determine if the value should be higher (positive effect) or lower (negative effect). Some of these might be:

Upbringing - a unit whose members grew up in thickly forested areas would be rated higher, those in cities or open terrain lower.

Training - a unit trained in forest areas would score a higher rating the more it was educated about combat in such environments.

Experience - since a unit that has fought in a particular way is more likely to do a better job the next time, the more experience a unit has in such combat should receive a higher score.

Equipment - some units were outfitted with weapons that were more suitable for fighting in heavily forested areas. They were issued axes, saws, better navigation aids, etc. The more the unit's equipment was tailored to the forest environment, the higher its rating.

------

OK, all the above gives a hint at how complex and difficult it is to model stuff like this. But one thing should be clear... NOWHERE did I suggest there should be some sort of factor that biologically, socially, mentally, etc. favors one nationality vs. another. All of the things I suggested are, in theory, quantifiable.

Using my example, a Veteran unit of cityboys, who only knew life and combat in basically urbanized areas, would be probably be less effective fighting in forested areas than a Green unit that was raised in and trained for forest combat. At least initially. And a regular unit trained in forest warfare, but not raised in it, might beat both.

Note again... no mention of nationality. If the Regular unit above were German, and the other two Soviet, the Germans would have the better unit when fighting in a forest battle. But if the German unit was the city one, the Soviets would have a definate edge.

Ain't history, warfare, and human abilites nice and simple to simulate

Steve

[willmontgomery]

Tommi, you are a god among men. I just had to write that, because characterizing your contribution to this thread as a breath of fresh air would be damning with faint praise.

It seems to me that every historical account has inevitable, inescapable built-in flaws. I was in the vaunted Imperial War Museum a little over a year ago, and I was wandering through the basement, which is devoted entirely to WWI and its sequel. I had to laugh when I entered one section concerned with how the Commonwealth and the US defeated Japan in the Pacific. Well, it might have been the US and the Commonwealth, but their mentioning themselves on the marquee of a show in which they were extras at best really cracked me up.

Then I thought about it a little more. I am an American; I have been educated in the US, and my formal schooling in US participation in WWII was very thin. My formal schooling in the participation of other nations is non-existent. Just because I didn't know about it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Not to take sides on the off-topic issue of whether Commonwealth participation in the defeat of Japan was or was not significant. My point is that the IWM has a viewpoint, and I had a viewpoint, and neither one is exactly right. They have a public to attract, and that public is likely to be more interested in Commonwealth participation. Ambrose wants to sell books; plus he works with first-person accounts, which have a value all their own but do not represent scholarly opinions. All these experts might be entirely respectable historians, but none of them has the unvarnished, unbiased, absolute truth.

Since my visit to the IWM I have begun to read somewhat widely on the subject of WWII. I have learned that the only way to learn is to read a lot, believe nothing implicitly, and wait for impressions to form from the melting pot of all the ingredients. The most fun is guessing the national origin of the author/editor of a book just from his/her slant.

------------------

"C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre."

[dumbo]

willmontgomery:

I know where you are coming from, its interesting; one of the reasons I stopped coming to the forum was I found it reactivated my nationalism genes which I had thought were long dead.

I am a Brit living in America but for some reason I still get offended when I hear the "wrong" version of history spoken over here IE: I get mad if anyone puts down or implies the Brits lost anything, ever

I have seen my American freinds have the same reaction if I dare voice the opinion that the Soviet Union primarily defeated Nazi Germany. So I dont think this is something I am alone in. God knows how it must feel to be a German

I guess I am curious why this should still be. Most folks who buy CM are fairly smart folks with a good historical education and yet still I see people get needled if their country is portrayed in a negative light EVEN if it happened centuries ago.

For all our modernity and so called globalization and meeting of other cultures via the internet the same old tribal nationalism still holds a powerful sway.

I dont really have a point other than I just wanted to let you know someone else out there is wrestling with this problem.

cheers,

_dumbo

[Guest Big Time Software]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I guess I am curious why this should still be. Most folks who buy CM are fairly smart folks with a good historical education and yet still I see people get needled if their country is portrayed in a negative light EVEN if it happened centuries ago.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Speaking as someone who decided to make a go of history for 4 years of college... most people, here or elsewhere, don't know SQUAT about their own country's history. And let's not even think about what they know about other people's history

I can only speak about US education here, but the US textbooks are generally written by committees. Overall quality level and depth... minimal at best. Trying to sum up 300 years of history in one book requires leaving out depth and bredth by definition. Even if all of the included stuff is accurate and to the point (which it often isn't), this is generally the only history that most people really get schooled in. Worse, they are spoonfed this stuff at an early (impressionable) age by teachers that very often don't know much more than what they read in the very same textbooks. So add it up and you get rather brief, watered down, and sometimes factually incorrect information being tought by someone who is not qualified (or having the time) to fill in the gaps for a group of students that are generally unenthusiastic about history and are too easily lead into believing what they are told.

So while most people are open minded, the minimal knowledge that they use as their "base of truth" is either too small or too flawed to be of much use when really examining the issues. It is only through wider study, or at the very least learning from those with wider knowledge, that the average person even begins to get a grasp on the beginnings of understanding the bigger picture.

I have spent about 17 years "seriously" researching WWII. And there is still so much that I don't know. So is it any wonder that the average person, who has had nothing more than a couple of weeks or months of schooling on WWII plus some TV shows and a couple of books under their belt, has some rather fundamental and huge gaps in their knowledge about a small slice of history (i.e. WWII)? Don't surprise me a bit

Steve

[dumbo]

Good point Steve,

US education is (in my limited experience of a few night classes) no worse then British history education in terms of its limitations. While visiting mainland Europe I encountered similar distorted views although I have no experience of their education system. My suspcion is that all countries play up their own role more than is warranted.

However even without a biased history I think nationalism has its hook in me. I KNOW for example about several unpleasant massacres commited by British troops in India and China, and yet I cant see them as "the bad guys", heck my reaction is still to question whether or not the foriegners were "exagerating". I am not even sure why I would feel that way. I can only assume (please correct me if I am wrong) that this tendency is common amongst folks of other nations.

I have no problem with other peoples history (I find Russian history facinating reading) but for some reason when it comes to "us" it gets me in the gut every time. I find some British history almost painful to read by comparision.

With WW2 I think the problem is amplified becuase it has been (mistakenly in my view) been turned into the benchmark "moral war". Good vs Evil.

Anyways its late, but you get my drift. Even though I know such feelings are stupid (why should I care if Rome defeated Caracatus or not?) but I do care and it confuses the crap outta me

gnite

_dumbo

[Slapdragon]

As a historical and human communication researcher and teacher (even done some anthropology but that field is grinding down into a rut) I can say a lot of people have been tracking the loss of historical knowledge (or lack, I am unconvinced that the average guy on the street has ever been a font of world knowledge) and even the reasons why people seem to get so defensive when their own culture (or the culture they feel is superior) is knocked a bit. The theory is Cognitive dissonance and it has been used successfully to explain why dictators make poor choices, or why the current election debate has boiled down to half the country gunning for the other half.

How it works in CM: people get attached to concepts or ideas: superiority of a certain tank, soldier, or nation; political reality of an event based on current political reality, or even a pride in the first thing learned about the subject. People tend to take a stand on a subject before they ever read the first word based on where and who is saying things -- like my fellow republicans turning off when they hear Clinton's name, or democrats turning off at Jesse Helms, or someone who thinks the Tiger was the best tank in WW2 turning off when they read a subject with a header that says: "Tigers were bad tanks".

People also like to stay close to what they know when collecting information -- everyone. How many of us have studied the political history of the Sudan? How many Americans bother to learn the names of the major cities of Australia, or know the capital of Rumania? Just human nature though, no one can keep track of it all.

Of course, last year I was surprised to find that out of 95 students of mine only 19 knew the year WW2 started and could name the leaders of the 5 largests countries involved. That is because history has been cut back in high schools in an effort to get SAT scores up.

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dumbo:

While visiting mainland Europe I encountered similar distorted views although I have no experience of their education system. My suspcion is that all countries play up their own role more than is warranted.

Anyways its late, but you get my drift. Even though I know such feelings are stupid (why should I care if Rome defeated Caracatus or not?) but I do care and it confuses the crap outta me<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think this has turned into a really interesting discussion from which much can be learned.

Just a quick point on the German education system, or education systems in general - it is not only the books, it is also important who teaches. One of my best history teacher was an extremely conservative Major (reserve) in the German Airborne. He was good for me because we both realised that we actually cared about the topics (late 18th to mid-20th century) equally, although we continuously and seriously disagreed about the conclusions to be drawn from any event. So if I wanted to get into a slanging match with him I had better read up, especially since our discussions were played out before 30 (utterly bored) other students. Quality of textbooks is one thing, but good teachers can handle any crap they have to work with, and bad teachers are not going to be rescued by the most excellent textbook in the world.

Regarding the 'blind spot' one often has for the horrendous things committed by one's own countryfolk: a serious issue here is also that the standards in what is acceptable are moving. Rorke's drift is still seen somewhat as heroism, in the fight between civilisation and barbary. If something similar occurred tomorrow, the British soldiers would be the barbarians.

While it was semi-acceptable for the British to put women and children into camps during the Boer War, where lots of them died from diseases (there was public pressure against it in Britain), the same thing done by the Japanese only 40 years later became a major war crime, and now the soldiers and civilians who suffered through it are going to receive compensation and the Japanese are urged to apologise. I honestly do not know whether there has ever been an official apology by the German government for the Hottentotten 'war', by the British for the Boer War or for the war in Sudan in the 1880s to pick some random examples.

Standards move, and what was acceptable at some point is now condemned. I believe this could account for a lot of the confusion on this issue.

------------------

Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 11-30-2000).]

[Bastables]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

As a historical and human communication researcher and teacher (even done some anthropology but that field is grinding down into a rut) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

May be it is in the US since primacy is still attached to culture as the core concept, insomuch as the US form of anthropology is separated into Biological, Archaeological, Cultural anthropology, (there is one other which I always forget making it a 4 school discipline) as opposed to the neboules form of ‘British’ Social Anthropology which is holding on in its ‘original’ form in only one University which still follows its precepts of studying ‘social relations’. (Massy) I would certainly not call the wide and nascent fields of visual or urban anthropology within Social Anthropology or with the critics of post-modernist though and the attempts at the rejection of culture as a primary paradigm, and its actual validity, as in a rut. But I’m not really that familiar with ‘American’ Cultural anthropology other than passing contact with its New Zealand forms in the university of Auckland. The problem with having Culture as the core or central pillar of anthropology makes things a bit sticky in that questioning its validity means questioning anthropologies validity. Most of this is a bit of rambling, why do you think anthros in a rut? You can email me if you prefer.

Regards Keay

[tss]

Big Time Software wrote:

On the Eastern Front I would say that, in general, the Soviet senior level commanders were very good.

... after the "Civil War cavalry clique" was thrown out, that is. Voroshilov, Mehlis, Kulik, and Timoshenko would all have been better candidates for receiving the German Grand Cross than Göring was, in my opinion.

Instead, the significant factors that differntiate one unit from another, in terms of qualty, need to be identified.

I think that having a simple two-axis unit quality rating would go quite far in allowing modeling of special cases. The axis would be experience, as it is now, and some sort of general morale rating. The latter would range from fanaticism to heightened desire for self-preservation.

So, to simulate Germans in forest, you could make them regular with less than average moral so that they would break easier than usually. The desperate defence of Finnish JR 61 at Kirvesmäki would have green troops with very high morale. Conversely, the Soviet breakthrough at JR 1's front 10.6.1944 would be against veteran troops with poor morale (though, to tell the truth, the Soviets would have came through in any case, but probably the main reason why the main attack was against JR 1 was that the previous day's recon attacks had shown that JR 58 (that had better morale) was a tougher nut to crack. I think that even a modern tank regiment would have difficult time stopping that attack).

The morale axis would be defined by the scenario designer

- Tommi

[Keith]

For the record Steven Ambrose IS a hack. He bases all of his history on American soldier's memories 55 years after the fact. Furthermore his books are LOADED with factual errors. I casually browsed through one of his books at a bookstore and I found numerous errors in a matter of minutes. Errors such as a reference to the 57mm German anti-tank gun, or referring to the Panzer Lehr division as a SS division. Ambrose regurgitates history from other sources and turns it around to suit his theories. I see him as a reaction to the John Keegan camp which actually believe nonsense such as Montgomery planned all along to conduct a battle of attrition around Caen to allow the Americans to break out on the left.

BTW I am from the US so I have no axe to grind.

[dalem]

I haven't read this whole thread, just the last few entries.

My hat is off. I very rarely end up enjoying these kinds of discussions via electronic means because they so often descend into flaming poo-poo. I myself have my own mantras and chants and things that I simply KNOW are true, gosh-darnit, and I'm sure I end up spoiling the broth as much as anyone else.

I think Will brought up the key (and maybe someone else did earlier in the topic), which is educating oneself. I know that many of my "I just believe it, darnit" ideas eventually fall in the face of those annoyingly cold, hard facts. WWII is one of my 'pet' areas of private study. I consider myself well-versed in that particular period, although no expert. There are, conservatively, about ten-zillion books and articles and papers written about that period with military focus, by about a jillion different authors in oodles of different languages.

I live in the U.S. I speak and read English. I've read maybe fifty to one hundred of those ten-zillion books. I figure I have a l-o-n-g way to go before I can assume that I am 100% correct about something WWII-ish. (Opinions are different - opinions are fun!) When facts or opinions are floating around that I don't like or that confuse me, I try to educate myself about them. Oftentimes I learn something new.

So I guess my point is that it's gratifying to see so much objectivity about such a 'flamey' topic.

-dale

[dumbo]

Wow, Really interesting threads. Good stuff.

Germanboy: I hear you about demanding teachers, I once had a pol sci teacher who asked me to explain why "democracy was good". I floundered utterly under his barrage of questions ;one of which interestingly was for me to explain how you could get the votes counted fairly Smart geezer that teacher.

Anyways thanks for all the responses, certainly very interesting reading. Its weird how such feelings are self replicating and can get passed down. I have seen card carrying internationalists turn into rabid nationalists if their ancestry is insulted. Makes you wonder if ethnic conflicts can be solved by any humane means at all.

Anyways thanks again all, take it easy.

_dumbo

[This message has been edited by dumbo (edited 11-30-2000).]