Military Thread: Humanity Hanging from a Cross of Iron

[Sarex]

39 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Wehraboo

TIL

[Malcador]

3 minutes ago, Sarex said:

TIL

More common than it should be, usually among Western Front nations.  I blame the History Channel in the US, helps fetishize Nazi wargear, then it's a short skip and jump to believing the Tiger was hyper-advanced only being defeated by an unending horde of unarmed Asian Soviet troops.  

Edited May 24, 2021 by Malcador

[Sarex]

I know about the people, never had a name to connect them to.

[Zoraptor]

It's pretty simple really:

Someone who thinks the Tiger Panther was the best tank of WW2 and if it wasn't it was the Kingtiger: wehraboo. Bonus if they think the Maus was in any way practical and every battle lost was due to political interference.

Someone who thinks the T34 was the best tank of WW2 and if it wasn't then it was the IS3: tankie. Bonus if they rail reflexively against Enemy at the Gates and obsessively correct anyone who repeats the 1 rifles for two soldiers/ penal battalion claims.

Someone who thinks the Sherman was the best tank of WW2 and if it wasn't then it was the Pershing: idiot. Bonus if they insist that a steady supply of the Tomb for 7 Brothers was the real reason the Soviets did well, and reflexively react to the M4 being called a Ronson/ Tommycooker.

6 hours ago, Malcador said:

I blame the History Channel in the US

Not sure the History Channel US can be fairly blamed for that. Does it show any actual history any more?

Wunderwaffe obsession, lost cause fetishisation and natty Hugo Boss uniforms seem to be the main attractors for wehraboos, wherever they've been exposed.

[Malcador]

28 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Wunderwaffe obsession

History Channel in the US did have some shows on that, at least 10-15 years ago.  I was being a bit unfair on the channel, I'll admit as I don't think there were that many as opposed to just stuff about WW2 or Hitler.   Have to think some also think that by bigging up the Nazis, they are enhancing the US' image as the US beat the Nazis, ergo US is even greater. 

28 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Bonus if they rail reflexively against Enemy at the Gates

I don't know if this is a bad thing, that movie is like Behind Enemy Lines or Braveheart

And the T-34 has my love for being good enough for what it was supposed to do, being the lazy ass engineer I am

 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Malcador

[Zoraptor]

I'd say that Enemy at the Gates gets a particularly relevant type of criticism because those it triggers tend to not be Russians/ ex soviets, with one of the characteristics of tankies/ wehraboos also being that they aren't ex soviet/ German. Braveheart occasionally triggers someone English, but there are very few people of other nationalities that get mortally offended on England's behalf.

 

[ComradeYellow]

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

History Channel in the US did have some shows on that, at least 10-15 years ago.

Yeah that's true, I remember that era quite well, though it was more like 20 something odd years ago.  Every other show was titled something like "Hitler the Bad Guy" but the subject matter was chock full of his speeches and quotes, like some kind of strange obsession. 

Edited May 25, 2021 by ComradeYellow

[Gorth]

The T34 is a weird thing. So simple, yet a stroke of genius in many ways. A right tool for the right job kind of thing. Decent stats (mobility, protection & firepower), easy to produce in large numbers, simple to operate and simple maintenance (what little low tech stuff that could break could be fixed by a peasant turned engineer with a hammer). 
 

edit: I sometimes think the whole wh40k STC tank concept is based on the history of the T34

[rjshae]

14 minutes ago, Gorth said:

The T34 is a weird thing. So simple, yet a stroke of genius in many ways. A right tool for the right job kind of thing. Decent stats (mobility, protection & firepower), easy to produce in large numbers, simple to operate and simple maintenance (what little low tech stuff that could break could be fixed by a peasant turned engineer with a hammer). 

edit: I sometimes think the whole wh40k STC tank concept is based on the history of the T34

I'm sure you're all familiar with the Christie tank design, which was offered to the US army but rejected. Some consider that design an ancestor of the T-34, and there are some striking similarities in the wheels and suspension. Definitely a spark of intelligence at work there.

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, rjshae said:

I'm sure you're all familiar with the Christie tank design, which was offered to the US army but rejected. Some consider that design an ancestor of the T-34, and there are some striking similarities in the wheels and suspension. Definitely a spark of intelligence at work there.

I wasn't really familiar with it, but looked it up on wiki (yes, boo, hiss). Interesting read. Apparently only the British and Russians used Christie suspensions (something about prophets and not being accepted their native countries seems to apply)

 

From the wiki about US Army trialing it:

"Army officials clocked a Christie M1931 tank attaining 104 mph (167 km/h), making it the fastest tank in the world: a record many believe it still holds"

[ComradeYellow]

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

The T34 is a weird thing. So simple, yet a stroke of genius in many ways. A right tool for the right job kind of thing.

It did lack radio communication though, which most German tank crews had.

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, ComradeYellow said:

It did lack radio communication though, which most German tank crews had.

Nothing that you can't fix by throwing more tanks at the problem

 

[ComradeYellow]

Right, and soldiers as well.  Stalin's handling of industrial relocation is what saved them ultimately, along with massive amounts of reserves.  I mean Germany had a population of 50+ million and Russia 170 million, what the Hell were they thinking rite.

On topic:

https://asiatimes.com/2021/05/us-researchers-take-stealth-tech-to-a-new-level/

Your move, Easterners.

[Zoraptor]

2 hours ago, Gorth said:

I wasn't really familiar with it, but looked it up on wiki (yes, boo, hiss). Interesting read. Apparently only the British and Russians used Christie suspensions (something about prophets and not being accepted their native countries seems to apply

T34 was the heaviest tank using Christie suspension though, the rest were all light to light mediums. That's not really game changing.

The HVSS suspension used by later Shermans were a massive improvement over the originals' anyway, albeit that system was 'stolen' off the brits' heavy tanks suspension system. Which must be about the only thing of value Brit heavy tanks had.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Zoraptor

[Sarex]

5 hours ago, ComradeYellow said:

Right, and soldiers as well.  Stalin's handling of industrial relocation is what saved them ultimately, along with massive amounts of reserves.  I mean Germany had a population of 50+ million and Russia 170 million, what the Hell were they thinking rite.

On topic:

https://asiatimes.com/2021/05/us-researchers-take-stealth-tech-to-a-new-level/

Your move, Easterners.

There would have been no need for relocation had Stalin not executed most of his military leadership.

[Malcador]

11 hours ago, Gorth said:

The T34 is a weird thing. So simple, yet a stroke of genius in many ways. A right tool for the right job kind of thing. Decent stats (mobility, protection & firepower), easy to produce in large numbers, simple to operate and simple maintenance (what little low tech stuff that could break could be fixed by a peasant turned engineer with a hammer). 
 

edit: I sometimes think the whole wh40k STC tank concept is based on the history of the T34

Worth watching just for the Smashmouth joke.

 

[ComradeYellow]

3 hours ago, Sarex said:

There would have been no need for relocation had Stalin not executed most of his military leadership.

Maybe, but I have a mind that a lot of those Tsarist era generals would have become German generals at the drop of a pin, given the opportunity.

But I guess there's no way to determine that, right?

[Zoraptor]

Most of those generals went for being too closely associated with Trotsky (or perceived to be too close, or they looked at Yezhov/ Stalin the wrong way), who organised the military during the revolution. And contrary to Stalinist propaganda Trotsky wasn't exactly big on appointing generals with White sympathies to his Red army. The biggest soviet loss from the great purge was probably Tukhachevsky, who was 20 and in a German PoW camp when the Tsar was removed.

The bigger counterpoint is that France almost certainly would have done better without her ossified WW1 generalship who insisted on trying to refight the last war, badly. It's no coincidence that 'Leclerc' and de Gaulle were pretty junior in WW1 (Leclerc literally, since he was 16 at its end) unlike Weygand/ Pétain et al. Even that doesn't really apply though, because the Soviet military leadership even pre-purge was a lot lot younger on average.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Zoraptor

[ComradeYellow]

Yeah Troksky is still reviled in Russia.

I've read some of his works, and he does seem more intelligent and pragmatic than Stalin, but history decided he wasn't worthy so Stalinist policies of rapid industrialization and collectivism won the argument.

His grandson is also pretty legit, his stance is that Marxism remains the #1 tool for gauging history but he hopes that something better comes along, as he routinely criticized the Iraq invasion and American imperialism in general.

3 cheers for Trotsky!

 

[kanisatha]

15 hours ago, ComradeYellow said:

His grandson is also pretty legit, his stance is that Marxism remains the #1 tool for gauging history but he hopes that something better comes along, as he routinely criticized the Iraq invasion and American imperialism in general.

As opposed to Russian and Soviet imperialism, I imagine.

[Gfted1]

US Navy conducts first live-fire test of hypersonic missile motor.

[Sarex]

Damn, so weird seeing the US lag behind in military tech.

[kanisatha]

18 hours ago, Sarex said:

Damn, so weird seeing the US lag behind in military tech.

It's inevitable to sit on your ass, pat yourself on the back, and take things for granted when you are at the top. It's nature's way of making sure there are no permanent winners or losers. It's this way with individuals, families, groups, corporations, universities, and yes countries/empires.

Edited May 30, 2021 by kanisatha

[Lexx]

https://www.axios.com/age-killer-robots-begun-8e8813d9-0fa1-4529-baf9-3358c1703bee.html

The future looks bad. Only thing we can hope for is that war will be anyhwere but here.

[ComradeYellow]

You thought WW2 was bad you haven't seen anything yet!