Mightier military vis-a-vis the contemporary competition: Imperial Germany or Nazi Germany?

BearsWiin said:

ThomasFremont said:

BearsWiin said:

ThomasFremont said:

BearsWiin said:

YellowSnow said:

GrundleStiltzkin said:

ThomasFremont said:

YellowSnow said:

ThomasFremont said:

I’m taking WWII in this one. For me it boils down to innovation. No Navy? No problem. They can terrorize the Atlantic crossing with U-boats.

Tanks were top notch. Artillery was super effective. Infantry was professional and motivated. And the blitz changed the game. If Hitler wasn’t such a dipshit strategically, his scientists would have developed nukes and then its game over. Instead he wasted half his army in Russia, and wasted resources on the V-2.

I’d argue not finishing off England was their biggest mistake though. Without England as a staging ground, retaking Europe would have been really fucking hard. We didn’t exactly roll through Italy like we had hoped...

Except wars are not usually won by technology and innovation alone. In other words these things don't mean shit if your political leadership sucks and you have poor strategy. Again, in WWI Germany's strategy came within a C-hair of winning twice- i.e., Aug of 1914 and Spring of 1918. Germany in WWII never got that close to winning.

The ball bearing, the aircraft carrier, and the atomic bomb respectfully disagree with your anti technology campaign w/r/t WWII.

Sure there are examples of underpowered insurgents/revolutionary movements beating global powers with superior tech, but those were almost always political defeats. In large scale conventional conflicts, tech plays a massive role. I’d argue that German industry and science gave them the edge to do what they did. It wasn’t manpower. It wasn’t genius strategic leadership (obviously). And it wasn’t really natural resources or economic advantages. They had to seize those.

Tech MATTERS. I hope this post made you THINK and CARE.

Tech matters a lot, but maybe industrial base matters more. It's staggering how much shit we! built in four years.

Consider, of those bad ass Tiger I and Tiger II tanks, the Germans built 1,839 of them. We? built over 49,000 Sherman tanks. The Soviets built over 34,000 T-34's which was probably the most important tank of WWII.

Tiger I was a mediocre tank, too many straight flat surfaces to catch incoming rounds. Tiger II was much better, but it was a heavy tank, not a medium one.

Panthers were much better, more angled sloping lines to the chassis and turret, and they made about 6,000 of them. They also made 8,500 Panzer IV variants. So between the IV/Tiger/Panthers, there's 16,000 tanks.

The US went to full war footing/production almost immediately. Germany resisted doing that until around 1943. Even so, per capita, they made a comparable number of tanks to the US/USSR

And the atomic bomb had a lot less to do with the end of the war than the Soviet declaration of war on August 8

The cancelled invasion of the Japanese home islands disagrees. The war was over. I’m talking about ending it for good vs killing millions more before it was official.

I invite you to read the minutes of the Imperial War Cabinet meeting of August 10 1945. They figured they could hold out against a bombing campaign, and the US would sue for some sort of peace before it would take the casualties required for the invasion of the home islands. They knew damn well that Stalin had no such qualms about sacrificing hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers.

And I refer YOU to the Battle of Okinawa, which was practically considered a home island at that point. One of the bloodiest/nastiest battles of the entire war.

I also refer you to the American Navy plan to convert medium size troop/tank transports into missile platforms as part of the bombardment of Tokyo. Casualty estimates were in the millions (mostly Japanese civilians) and the time to pacify the islands was considered difficult due to the expected civilian resistance.

Keep in mind the deep cultural differences between the Germans and the Japanese as foes. Without the overwhelming show of force that was the atomic bomb, it’s likely the surrender would have been delayed enough to significantly add to the death toll.

Grandpa (WW2 Naval officer) told me I’d likely never have existed if that invasion took place. He knew the proposed battle plan first hand.

Jesus Christ, man, what the fuck are you arguing? That an invasion would have been horrible? That's not up for debate. That is up for debate is how instrumental that atomic bombs were in getting the Japanese High Command to capitulate. We? like to think that it was because of the atomic bombs, because it validates the effort we? put into making them and it makes it all about us?, which is what Americans tend to like to do. But the minutes of the meeting that the Japanese Imperial War Council had one day after Nagasaki, and two days after Soviet troops poured over the Manchurian border, tell us that the Japanese were more concerned about fighting Soviet soldiers on land than they were about dealing with continued strategic bombing.

We did use the atomic bomb as quickly as we could because we wanted to try to get the Japanese to surrender before the Soviets came into the war, as they pledged to do within three months of the German surrender. As it turned out, the Soviet entry was sandwiched between atomic bombings. The minutes of the Japanese meeting tell us that both played a part in their decision (which was in no way unanimous), but that the prospect of dealing with Soviet armies was a bigger factor than the atomic bombs were. We'd already razed their cities. They didn't particularly care if we did it with 400 planes and 10,000 incendiaries, or with four planes and one big bomb.

Interestingly enough, I read somewhere today that the initial proponent of the Soviet invasion causing the surrender now says that the invasion did not deliver the knockout punch (https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/debate-over-japanese-surrender). This historian claims that the consensus view now is that both were important (https://www.manhattanprojectvoices.org/oral-histories/j-samuel-walkers-interview):
"Historians argue about which is more important. Some say the atomic bomb wasn’t important at all, that it was the Soviet invasion. Some say it was the atomic bomb and the Soviet invasion was not very important. Most scholars now say it’s the combination of two and you can’t possibly sort out which was more important. But, it seems clear to me that the atomic bomb was the most important factor in convincing the emperor and that was a crucial step. So, some combination of the two, and it certainly varied from person to person which was more important, made Japan decide it had to surrender."
He also points to a theory that the Soviet invasion was perhaps more influential with generals especially in China, but the bomb is what convinced Hirohito (although there was even an attempted coup then, so obviously the soviet invasion did not convince everyone in the military either). I think there is a temptation among historians to do the opposite, to say the bombs had no effect or were unimportant because those in academia like to think of America as being evil or as a knee jerk reaction to the over the top pro-Americanism.

Doog_de_Jour said:

BearsWiin said:

ThomasFremont said:

BearsWiin said:

ThomasFremont said:

BearsWiin said:

YellowSnow said:

GrundleStiltzkin said:

ThomasFremont said:

YellowSnow said:

ThomasFremont said:

I’m taking WWII in this one. For me it boils down to innovation. No Navy? No problem. They can terrorize the Atlantic crossing with U-boats.

Tanks were top notch. Artillery was super effective. Infantry was professional and motivated. And the blitz changed the game. If Hitler wasn’t such a dipshit strategically, his scientists would have developed nukes and then its game over. Instead he wasted half his army in Russia, and wasted resources on the V-2.

I’d argue not finishing off England was their biggest mistake though. Without England as a staging ground, retaking Europe would have been really fucking hard. We didn’t exactly roll through Italy like we had hoped...

Except wars are not usually won by technology and innovation alone. In other words these things don't mean shit if your political leadership sucks and you have poor strategy. Again, in WWI Germany's strategy came within a C-hair of winning twice- i.e., Aug of 1914 and Spring of 1918. Germany in WWII never got that close to winning.

The ball bearing, the aircraft carrier, and the atomic bomb respectfully disagree with your anti technology campaign w/r/t WWII.

Sure there are examples of underpowered insurgents/revolutionary movements beating global powers with superior tech, but those were almost always political defeats. In large scale conventional conflicts, tech plays a massive role. I’d argue that German industry and science gave them the edge to do what they did. It wasn’t manpower. It wasn’t genius strategic leadership (obviously). And it wasn’t really natural resources or economic advantages. They had to seize those.

Tech MATTERS. I hope this post made you THINK and CARE.

Tech matters a lot, but maybe industrial base matters more. It's staggering how much shit we! built in four years.

Consider, of those bad ass Tiger I and Tiger II tanks, the Germans built 1,839 of them. We? built over 49,000 Sherman tanks. The Soviets built over 34,000 T-34's which was probably the most important tank of WWII.

Tiger I was a mediocre tank, too many straight flat surfaces to catch incoming rounds. Tiger II was much better, but it was a heavy tank, not a medium one.

Panthers were much better, more angled sloping lines to the chassis and turret, and they made about 6,000 of them. They also made 8,500 Panzer IV variants. So between the IV/Tiger/Panthers, there's 16,000 tanks.

The US went to full war footing/production almost immediately. Germany resisted doing that until around 1943. Even so, per capita, they made a comparable number of tanks to the US/USSR

And the atomic bomb had a lot less to do with the end of the war than the Soviet declaration of war on August 8

The cancelled invasion of the Japanese home islands disagrees. The war was over. I’m talking about ending it for good vs killing millions more before it was official.

I invite you to read the minutes of the Imperial War Cabinet meeting of August 10 1945. They figured they could hold out against a bombing campaign, and the US would sue for some sort of peace before it would take the casualties required for the invasion of the home islands. They knew damn well that Stalin had no such qualms about sacrificing hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers.

And I refer YOU to the Battle of Okinawa, which was practically considered a home island at that point. One of the bloodiest/nastiest battles of the entire war.

I also refer you to the American Navy plan to convert medium size troop/tank transports into missile platforms as part of the bombardment of Tokyo. Casualty estimates were in the millions (mostly Japanese civilians) and the time to pacify the islands was considered difficult due to the expected civilian resistance.

Keep in mind the deep cultural differences between the Germans and the Japanese as foes. Without the overwhelming show of force that was the atomic bomb, it’s likely the surrender would have been delayed enough to significantly add to the death toll.

Grandpa (WW2 Naval officer) told me I’d likely never have existed if that invasion took place. He knew the proposed battle plan first hand.

Jesus Christ, man, what the fuck are you arguing? That an invasion would have been horrible? That's not up for debate. That is up for debate is how instrumental that atomic bombs were in getting the Japanese High Command to capitulate. We? like to think that it was because of the atomic bombs, because it validates the effort we? put into making them and it makes it all about us?, which is what Americans tend to like to do. But the minutes of the meeting that the Japanese Imperial War Council had one day after Nagasaki, and two days after Soviet troops poured over the Manchurian border, tell us that the Japanese were more concerned about fighting Soviet soldiers on land than they were about dealing with continued strategic bombing.

We did use the atomic bomb as quickly as we could because we wanted to try to get the Japanese to surrender before the Soviets came into the war, as they pledged to do within three months of the German surrender. As it turned out, the Soviet entry was sandwiched between atomic bombings. The minutes of the Japanese meeting tell us that both played a part in their decision (which was in no way unanimous), but that the prospect of dealing with Soviet armies was a bigger factor than the atomic bombs were. We'd already razed their cities. They didn't particularly care if we did it with 400 planes and 10,000 incendiaries, or with four planes and one big bomb.

One interesting theory I’ve read is that some US officials purposely inflated the projected casualties of a Japanese mainland invasion because they wanted to pressure Truman into using the bomb as a pre-postwar power move against the Soviets. Stalin knew we had the bomb, but many were of the mind unless we actually *used* it he wouldn’t be intimidated by it - which was an edge many felt the US needed going into the peace negotiations.

They may have done that, but he didn't need much convincing. He didn't want people to come back at him in the aftermath of a bloody invasion and say hey, you had this new bomb that might have forced them to surrender, and you didn't use it? That would have been politically disastrous whether the casualty figures were 50,000 dead or 250,000 dead. Even if you leave US casualties out of the equation, from a moral standpoont it was the thing to do, since killing 200,000 Japanese civilians with atomic bombs was a lower cost than killing a couple million Japanese in a bloody invasion. All these things were made clear to him, and IIRC his memoirs indicate that he didn't deliberate long, nor did he think it was a particularly difficult decision.

And, yes, making a demonstration of sorts to the Soviets was a part of the discussion, but it took a back seat to military considerations.

BearsWiin said:

ThomasFremont said:

BearsWiin said:

ThomasFremont said:

BearsWiin said:

ThomasFremont said:

BearsWiin said:

YellowSnow said:

GrundleStiltzkin said:

ThomasFremont said:

YellowSnow said:

ThomasFremont said:

I’m taking WWII in this one. For me it boils down to innovation. No Navy? No problem. They can terrorize the Atlantic crossing with U-boats.

Tanks were top notch. Artillery was super effective. Infantry was professional and motivated. And the blitz changed the game. If Hitler wasn’t such a dipshit strategically, his scientists would have developed nukes and then its game over. Instead he wasted half his army in Russia, and wasted resources on the V-2.

I’d argue not finishing off England was their biggest mistake though. Without England as a staging ground, retaking Europe would have been really fucking hard. We didn’t exactly roll through Italy like we had hoped...

Except wars are not usually won by technology and innovation alone. In other words these things don't mean shit if your political leadership sucks and you have poor strategy. Again, in WWI Germany's strategy came within a C-hair of winning twice- i.e., Aug of 1914 and Spring of 1918. Germany in WWII never got that close to winning.

The ball bearing, the aircraft carrier, and the atomic bomb respectfully disagree with your anti technology campaign w/r/t WWII.

Sure there are examples of underpowered insurgents/revolutionary movements beating global powers with superior tech, but those were almost always political defeats. In large scale conventional conflicts, tech plays a massive role. I’d argue that German industry and science gave them the edge to do what they did. It wasn’t manpower. It wasn’t genius strategic leadership (obviously). And it wasn’t really natural resources or economic advantages. They had to seize those.

Tech MATTERS. I hope this post made you THINK and CARE.

Tech matters a lot, but maybe industrial base matters more. It's staggering how much shit we! built in four years.

Consider, of those bad ass Tiger I and Tiger II tanks, the Germans built 1,839 of them. We? built over 49,000 Sherman tanks. The Soviets built over 34,000 T-34's which was probably the most important tank of WWII.

Tiger I was a mediocre tank, too many straight flat surfaces to catch incoming rounds. Tiger II was much better, but it was a heavy tank, not a medium one.

Panthers were much better, more angled sloping lines to the chassis and turret, and they made about 6,000 of them. They also made 8,500 Panzer IV variants. So between the IV/Tiger/Panthers, there's 16,000 tanks.

The US went to full war footing/production almost immediately. Germany resisted doing that until around 1943. Even so, per capita, they made a comparable number of tanks to the US/USSR

And the atomic bomb had a lot less to do with the end of the war than the Soviet declaration of war on August 8

The cancelled invasion of the Japanese home islands disagrees. The war was over. I’m talking about ending it for good vs killing millions more before it was official.

I invite you to read the minutes of the Imperial War Cabinet meeting of August 10 1945. They figured they could hold out against a bombing campaign, and the US would sue for some sort of peace before it would take the casualties required for the invasion of the home islands. They knew damn well that Stalin had no such qualms about sacrificing hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers.

And I refer YOU to the Battle of Okinawa, which was practically considered a home island at that point. One of the bloodiest/nastiest battles of the entire war.

I also refer you to the American Navy plan to convert medium size troop/tank transports into missile platforms as part of the bombardment of Tokyo. Casualty estimates were in the millions (mostly Japanese civilians) and the time to pacify the islands was considered difficult due to the expected civilian resistance.

Keep in mind the deep cultural differences between the Germans and the Japanese as foes. Without the overwhelming show of force that was the atomic bomb, it’s likely the surrender would have been delayed enough to significantly add to the death toll.

Grandpa (WW2 Naval officer) told me I’d likely never have existed if that invasion took place. He knew the proposed battle plan first hand.

Jesus Christ, man, what the fuck are you arguing? That an invasion would have been horrible? That's not up for debate. That is up for debate is how instrumental that atomic bombs were in getting the Japanese High Command to capitulate. We? like to think that it was because of the atomic bombs, because it validates the effort we? put into making them and it makes it all about us?, which is what Americans tend to like to do. But the minutes of the meeting that the Japanese Imperial War Council had one day after Nagasaki, and two days after Soviet troops poured over the Manchurian border, tell us that the Japanese were more concerned about fighting Soviet soldiers on land than they were about dealing with continued strategic bombing.

We did use the atomic bomb as quickly as we could because we wanted to try to get the Japanese to surrender before the Soviets came into the war, as they pledged to do within three months of the German surrender. As it turned out, the Soviet entry was sandwiched between atomic bombings. The minutes of the Japanese meeting tell us that both played a part in their decision (which was in no way unanimous), but that the prospect of dealing with Soviet armies was a bigger factor than the atomic bombs were. We'd already razed their cities. They didn't particularly care if we did it with 400 planes and 10,000 incendiaries, or with four planes and one big bomb.

The Germans were more scared of the Soviets too. They knew the Red Army wasn’t the side you wanted to get captured by.

That doesn’t invalidate the impact on the bomb hastening their surrender before more Allies died in an invasion.

Nobody is invalidating the impact of the atomic bombs. They had an effect. We? like to think that it was decisive. Evidence of what the Japanese command was saying to each other tells us that the Soviet entry was more important to their decision to surrender than the atomic bombs were.

All it tells us is that they believed the Americans would sue for peace and the Soviets were a wild card. Like I said, they were more scared of the Soviets because of what they’d do vs what we would do. It’s why the surrender was signed on the USS Missouri and not the Battleship Potemkin.

BearsWiin said:

Pitchfork51 said:

BearsWiin said:

ThomasFremont said:

BearsWiin said:

ThomasFremont said:

BearsWiin said:

YellowSnow said:

GrundleStiltzkin said:

ThomasFremont said:

YellowSnow said:

ThomasFremont said:

I’m taking WWII in this one. For me it boils down to innovation. No Navy? No problem. They can terrorize the Atlantic crossing with U-boats.

Tanks were top notch. Artillery was super effective. Infantry was professional and motivated. And the blitz changed the game. If Hitler wasn’t such a dipshit strategically, his scientists would have developed nukes and then its game over. Instead he wasted half his army in Russia, and wasted resources on the V-2.

I’d argue not finishing off England was their biggest mistake though. Without England as a staging ground, retaking Europe would have been really fucking hard. We didn’t exactly roll through Italy like we had hoped...

Except wars are not usually won by technology and innovation alone. In other words these things don't mean shit if your political leadership sucks and you have poor strategy. Again, in WWI Germany's strategy came within a C-hair of winning twice- i.e., Aug of 1914 and Spring of 1918. Germany in WWII never got that close to winning.

The ball bearing, the aircraft carrier, and the atomic bomb respectfully disagree with your anti technology campaign w/r/t WWII.

Sure there are examples of underpowered insurgents/revolutionary movements beating global powers with superior tech, but those were almost always political defeats. In large scale conventional conflicts, tech plays a massive role. I’d argue that German industry and science gave them the edge to do what they did. It wasn’t manpower. It wasn’t genius strategic leadership (obviously). And it wasn’t really natural resources or economic advantages. They had to seize those.

Tech MATTERS. I hope this post made you THINK and CARE.

Tech matters a lot, but maybe industrial base matters more. It's staggering how much shit we! built in four years.

Consider, of those bad ass Tiger I and Tiger II tanks, the Germans built 1,839 of them. We? built over 49,000 Sherman tanks. The Soviets built over 34,000 T-34's which was probably the most important tank of WWII.

Tiger I was a mediocre tank, too many straight flat surfaces to catch incoming rounds. Tiger II was much better, but it was a heavy tank, not a medium one.

Panthers were much better, more angled sloping lines to the chassis and turret, and they made about 6,000 of them. They also made 8,500 Panzer IV variants. So between the IV/Tiger/Panthers, there's 16,000 tanks.

The US went to full war footing/production almost immediately. Germany resisted doing that until around 1943. Even so, per capita, they made a comparable number of tanks to the US/USSR

And the atomic bomb had a lot less to do with the end of the war than the Soviet declaration of war on August 8

The cancelled invasion of the Japanese home islands disagrees. The war was over. I’m talking about ending it for good vs killing millions more before it was official.

I invite you to read the minutes of the Imperial War Cabinet meeting of August 10 1945. They figured they could hold out against a bombing campaign, and the US would sue for some sort of peace before it would take the casualties required for the invasion of the home islands. They knew damn well that Stalin had no such qualms about sacrificing hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers.

And I refer YOU to the Battle of Okinawa, which was practically considered a home island at that point. One of the bloodiest/nastiest battles of the entire war.

I also refer you to the American Navy plan to convert medium size troop/tank transports into missile platforms as part of the bombardment of Tokyo. Casualty estimates were in the millions (mostly Japanese civilians) and the time to pacify the islands was considered difficult due to the expected civilian resistance.

Keep in mind the deep cultural differences between the Germans and the Japanese as foes. Without the overwhelming show of force that was the atomic bomb, it’s likely the surrender would have been delayed enough to significantly add to the death toll.

Grandpa (WW2 Naval officer) told me I’d likely never have existed if that invasion took place. He knew the proposed battle plan first hand.

Jesus Christ, man, what the fuck are you arguing? That an invasion would have been horrible? That's not up for debate. That is up for debate is how instrumental that atomic bombs were in getting the Japanese High Command to capitulate. We? like to think that it was because of the atomic bombs, because it validates the effort we? put into making them and it makes it all about us?, which is what Americans tend to like to do. But the minutes of the meeting that the Japanese Imperial War Council had one day after Nagasaki, and two days after Soviet troops poured over the Manchurian border, tell us that the Japanese were more concerned about fighting Soviet soldiers on land than they were about dealing with continued strategic bombing.

We did use the atomic bomb as quickly as we could because we wanted to try to get the Japanese to surrender before the Soviets came into the war, as they pledged to do within three months of the German surrender. As it turned out, the Soviet entry was sandwiched between atomic bombings. The minutes of the Japanese meeting tell us that both played a part in their decision (which was in no way unanimous), but that the prospect of dealing with Soviet armies was a bigger factor than the atomic bombs were. We'd already razed their cities. They didn't particularly care if we did it with 400 planes and 10,000 incendiaries, or with four planes and one big bomb.

Werent they also in a bit of disbelief at the devastation the atom bomb could cause

Yeah, 16 square miles derstroyed, 100,000 killed, over a million displaced - oh wait, that was the incendiary bombing raid on Tokyo on the night of March 9.

The level of destruction was nothing new; in fact, it had become common. What was new was the efficiency with which the USAAF did it.

Yeah that's what I mean.

They just let it rip.

No warning just gone

I got through about 8 minutes of that podcast before turning it off because he never talked about the topic at hand, he just talked about talking about it. If I ever started my lectures with that much rambling bullshit, I couldn't blame my students for walking out.

YellowSnow said:

BearsWiin said:

YellowSnow said:

GrundleStiltzkin said:

ThomasFremont said:

YellowSnow said:

ThomasFremont said:

I’m taking WWII in this one. For me it boils down to innovation. No Navy? No problem. They can terrorize the Atlantic crossing with U-boats.

Tanks were top notch. Artillery was super effective. Infantry was professional and motivated. And the blitz changed the game. If Hitler wasn’t such a dipshit strategically, his scientists would have developed nukes and then its game over. Instead he wasted half his army in Russia, and wasted resources on the V-2.

I’d argue not finishing off England was their biggest mistake though. Without England as a staging ground, retaking Europe would have been really fucking hard. We didn’t exactly roll through Italy like we had hoped...

Except wars are not usually won by technology and innovation alone. In other words these things don't mean shit if your political leadership sucks and you have poor strategy. Again, in WWI Germany's strategy came within a C-hair of winning twice- i.e., Aug of 1914 and Spring of 1918. Germany in WWII never got that close to winning.

The ball bearing, the aircraft carrier, and the atomic bomb respectfully disagree with your anti technology campaign w/r/t WWII.

Sure there are examples of underpowered insurgents/revolutionary movements beating global powers with superior tech, but those were almost always political defeats. In large scale conventional conflicts, tech plays a massive role. I’d argue that German industry and science gave them the edge to do what they did. It wasn’t manpower. It wasn’t genius strategic leadership (obviously). And it wasn’t really natural resources or economic advantages. They had to seize those.

Tech MATTERS. I hope this post made you THINK and CARE.

Tech matters a lot, but maybe industrial base matters more. It's staggering how much shit we! built in four years.

Consider, of those bad ass Tiger I and Tiger II tanks, the Germans built 1,839 of them. We? built over 49,000 Sherman tanks. The Soviets built over 34,000 T-34's which was probably the most important tank of WWII.

Tiger I was a mediocre tank, too many straight flat surfaces to catch incoming rounds. Tiger II was much better, but it was a heavy tank, not a medium one.

Panthers were much better, more angled sloping lines to the chassis and turret, and they made about 6,000 of them. They also made 8,500 Panzer IV variants. So between the IV/Tiger/Panthers, there's 16,000 tanks.

The US went to full war footing/production almost immediately. Germany resisted doing that until around 1943. Even so, per capita, they made a comparable number of tanks to the US/USSR

And the atomic bomb had a lot less to do with the end of the war than the Soviet declaration of war on August 8

Still total USSR and USA tank production dwarfed that of Germany of all types.

And that's just Shermans. We had better but could pound those things out.

dnc said:

Swaye said:

It's a really weird feeling to come to HH and actually learn interesting things.

Really? I feel like that happens rather frequently in this shithole.

Since Yella is very tall, the bar of enlightenment is set much higher than for you or me(?).

PurpleThrobber said:

The WWII Krauts relied on horses and carts. Same as they did in WWI

The Germans had an average of over a million horses used for troop movement. The US used less than 100,000, a good chunk of which were mules in the Pacific Theater.

Back when @SpiritHorse was just @Horse