[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Yes, but the German’s made a crucial error by invading Russia during the winter months and was fighting a multi front war. [/quote]
Actually they invaded in early summer.
And they weren’t fighting a multi-front war when they initially invaded Russia. France was conquered and the Brits were getting their ass kicked in Africa. The 2nd front didn’t open until well after the Russians kicked Germany’s ass and were steam-rolling into German-controlled territory.[/quote]
Hitler’s main plan was to attack Russia several months earlier, but a revolt in Czechoslovakia pushed his invasion plans back a few months.
Edit: I have “The Rape of Nanking” checked out from my Library, but haven’t gotten to it yet.[/quote]
I’ve read it. It’ll blow you away.[/quote]
Ugh. I went ahead and moved it to the front of my list. I’m a little over halfway through and am full of a very odd combination of anger and nausea. Literally, I’m astounded by the inventiveness and creativity. I could not have invented, in the darkest recesses of my mind, cruelties approaching what actual happened to real people on an insane scale. I don’t even want to finish it but I feel like I aught to. [/quote]
It is completely mindboggling. It very much is. History is both entirely fascinating and frequently sickening by alternating turns…sometimes both together.
I can completely fathom going “Law Abiding Citizen” on some individual that abused, terrorized and/or murdered my family or loved ones…but I cannot even comprehend committing the atrocities many of those people lived through.
I dunno about this piece. I had a chuckle at how the translator-slash-editor-slash commentator just kind of interjects his own opinions and lets us all believe that the French soldier was the author of it all.
If you’re paying attention, though, you’ll catch that the most complimentary parts (specifically the part about ordinary 11-Bravos in today’s Army exceeding the physical fitness and training levels of Vietnam-era Green Berets, as well as the IQ and educational levels of the Waffen SS, the Rangers, Airborne and British ‘Commando’ units during WWII), was all commentary added by the translator.
Also, I had to roll my eyes at how the author made a big show of wanting to protect the identity of the Americans he’s serving alongside, “pour cause de secret militaire” (in the name of military secrecy)…just before outing them as members of Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne, with his countless ham-handed references to Band of Brothers.
Way to maintain military secrecy there, Jacques.
I just dunno. The article mentions that the author is a member of the NATO International Security Assistance Force, but makes no mention of his MOS. The original article in French similarly makes no mention of anything, including the name of the author. I’m guessing that the author is himself (herself?) not an infantryman, but rather a member of the French equivalent of Stars and Stripes (what do they call their military propaganda newspaper, Le Tricolore?). This would explain the constant references to how much bigger and taller and muscular and more competent the American grunts are than their French counterparts. Not that the author had any vested interest in making the Americans out to be supermen, just that compared to himself and the other POGs in the press corps, that’s what they appeared to be.
Whatever. It was a feel-good piece. In 2008 (when the article was, in fact, written) we needed all the good news we could get out of Afghanistan.
Oops. I see that the thread has moved on to talking about The Great Patriotic War, fought by the Greatest Generation, and no longer about the Great Payback War, fought by the Even Greaterest Generation®.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Literally, I’m astounded by the inventiveness and creativity. I could not have invented, in the darkest recesses of my mind, cruelties approaching what actual happened to real people on an insane scale. [/quote]
Why astounded? These are the people who invented tentacle rape hentai porn, after all.
American manufacturing, natural resources, and logistics + russian blood + poor military tactics by hitler = victory in ww2
If the Germans focused 100% on sacking moscow they would have, instead hitler spread his armies too thin in the east, lost at Stalingrad, and then the rest is history…
Russia would have been nuked if they fucked with the west and started fighting where the germans left off. Dont even start with the “if they dint use nukes” bullshit.
[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
Yes, they all play GI Joe very well.
They look fantastic - when winning against midgets.
The moment the midget keeps on fighting, you fold, because the US can’t take casualties for shit.
[/quote]Because THAT’S how you measure a country’s “toughness”, by how many casualties they can “take”? You’re fucking insane.[quote]
Brit Officers in WW1 stormed german trenches with footballs and umbrellas to prove a point, [/quote]Bet that was great for morale. Did they get voted officer of the year?[quote] fully knowing that they would get smashed to bloody pulp.
Soviets, frenchis, the vietnamese, they all lost amounts of soldiers that would give US generals an instant heart attack.
This kind of tenacity and toughness is gone nowadays, and good riddance!
Keep telling yourselves how great your toy soldiers and how accomplished your middle eastern war missions are.[/quote]
I really don’t think you want to see first hand what happens when the US Military opens up a can of whoop ass… You just might shit yourself.[/quote]
Well yes, that is how I would measure a countries “toughness”.
If you just take your ball and go home if people fight back with what little they have, you really were not serious to begin with.
As to the British officers who indeed did attack German positions carrying umbrellas and kicking footballs towards the enemies positions, they believed in the innate superior qualities of the British soldier, the Germans believed in machine guns, which are pretty handy in trench warfare.
What if this whole thread has nothing to do with the “toughness” of any nation’s soldiers, since toughness is an individual quality, but instead with the degree to which a nation has bought into its commander/s’ policies and goals? What if a huge number of history’s wars have been decided not by the quality of the soldiers involved, but instead by the technology available to those soldiers? It seems pointless to debate the quality of any nation’s soldiers, when the sheer number of soldiers and the technology available to them are both more important to the military success of that nation.