TFT *SPOILERS* thoughts, discussions, and future speculation

Hello SilverbladeTE!,

Wow! What an impressive record your family amassed, Fantastic!

I wasn't criticizing the bravery of British troops, far from it; I'm working on a novel how Great Britain wins WW2 and saves the empire , not just surviving; I was criticizing their political leadership.

I'd love to hear some of those stories when you have the time, and yes the British Army took heavier casualties than the US from a population a third the size, but Monty's usual record is always based on his outnumbering the defenders, so the idea of seriously attacking millions of soviet soldiers would have made him do something embarrassing in front of witnesses.

Given the political reasons for the Brits taking the coast (pre-invasion positions and clearing the 'vengeance weapons') yet despite RN traditions, the Allied amphibious capability was largely unused by Monty, then his stupid decision giving his army group 3 days off after taking Brussels, NTM ignoring the fact he hadn't cleared the Approaches to Antwerp, the supposed other primary purpose of his advance, then chose to waste the allied airborne army driving to a bridge too far, desperately trying to get out in front of the Americans, when he was supposed to be reducing the critical allied armies' supply problem, so he created Hitler's opportunity because it took 2 more monthes to finally start using Antwerp, less than a month before the BoB.

Typically, rather than risk British lives against the vastly stronger German forces he let slip by him, NTM getting bogged down in an embarrassing way, he assigned the Canadians to do the dirty work (the survivors are not great Monty admirers); kind of like MacArthur giving the Australians the 'difficult' bits in Bougainville and Borneo etc.
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SilverbladeTE wrote:Lyonheart
In 1944+ the British were going up the much tougher coastal route which would have caused extreme US casualties....that's why the armies were set out that way
Let them play to their strengths
UK had been in the war taking casualties years longer than the USA so that was a massive SOCIAL issue.

Yes it was 6 long years, and who's fault was much of that? Montgomery!

Celerity was not one of his watchwords in his 'pursuit' of Rommel, NTM the invasions of Sicily and Italy, or advancing along the French coast; indeed between him and Admiral King's stubborn stupidity, which delayed Torch by 4 monthes, the war may have dragged an extra year, maybe more if the rest of the generals hadn't also dawdled on occasion.

All the allied armies were very aware of the need to conserve their troop strength, and the simple blockade and besiege approach to the German occupied ports certainly kept casualties on the low side, but ignoring the opportunities to grab Antwerp and use it back in mid-September which could have kept western allies advancing rather further possibly reaching the Rhine by winter, thus preventing the German counter-attack, that should have been predicted since it obviously had a much greater chance of success than simply being swallowed up by the soviets in the east.
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French leadership collapsed in 1940 largely as a result of too many older officers who'd been brought up on the insane "aggressive" doctrine that got their men butchered in 1914/1915
And those officers basically had a collective mental breakdown when things went wrong in 1940
And Europe damn near had a total revolution because of the carnage in 1918
Thus, worrying over "casualties" wasn't a joke to nations and officers who'd suffered that.

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No, it wasn't a joke, and I was only trying to be as succinct as possible rather than my too wordy norm.
The French Army revolt in 1917 was due to that reckless attitude regarding always attacking under inept leadership, that compelled the British to hold so much of the front until the French reorganized.

The British professional officers who survived and stayed in were far more determined to prevents more Somme's than JFC Fuller, but he had the ear of the politicians.
Then there those who argue the British Army did much better in WWI than WWII.
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Monty was an arrogant ass, so was Patton and Patton didn't have the skills/temperament for the slower "grind" up the coast, he was great at "blitzkrieg".

My great uncle fought in France 1940, they didn't "run" they got beaten by having as usual, top brass mind set of the last war fought, and the poor bloody French having top brass that melted down.
French and British could have defeated the Germans but....
Oh and then he came back in 1944, ended up liberating Belsen
British troops in 1940 had to deal with the Luftwaffe scum butchering civilians on road and trains, which FYI was very hard on the troops to cope with mentally
And yeah "scum" deliberate policy of slaughtering refugees
Alas UK took up civilian slaughter from the air, too

My 2 grandads fought in North Africa/Italy and Burma respectively
Paternal was in Royal Artillery, at one point 25 pounder firing over open sights as antitank gunner. Was buried alive twice by shell fire, one occasion ALL his Indian mates in the section drowned in the sand because of that. Was also at Monte Cassino.
Maternal was in the Chindits and saw what the Japanese did with prisoners and their 14 inch SMLE bayonets...though he said what they did to the local people especially their women was even worse.

And I don't think the US would be so damn complacent of casualties causing issues after Saipan.
It IS a serious issue.
Sigh [/quote]

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Again Wow! and I hope your grandfathers and great uncle felt fully appreciated for their service!

Casualties are a very serious issue, and one I was quite familiar with in Iraq, thanks to 'Force Protection' measures, but there were times when it was or seemed more important than fighting and winning.

I think Tarawa upset Americans at home more than Saipan, given how much bigger and more useful Saipan was, not to mention Guam was a former US territory.

But the lessons learned the hard way are sometimes what it takes to get big bureaucracies to pay attention.

Kudos to your grandfathers and great uncle for their service and experience!

L

Dilandu
Stalin was a paranoid murderous gangster with delusions of pretending to understand politics, science and economics :p
So Ukrainian independence, be it absolute or in terms of a division of the Communist Party was always gonna be a huge problem for that SOB

I know Russia had excellent scientists and engineers, I wasn't brought up with "Commies 'r dumb 'n evil!" Silliness
But also know more about the internal lies and stresses just like UK still covers up its own from that period.

The political demands, punishment for no genuine reason etc did cause enormous stresses on Soviet manufacturing, logistics etc
Put simply, if not for Allies supplying *trucks* to the USSR the Germans would likely have won (bit simplistic but not far off)

Ammunition, fuel, spare parts, quality of items had all plummeted for the Red Army by the end, worn to a level the Stavka knew were a serious worry.
As well as the men being worn and losses that were extremely worrying


I'd recommend the "RED GAMBIT" alt history novel series for a read, pretty balanced and fair IMHO, considering West vs USSR war in 1945

Oh and please remember another large reason the USSR didn't get defeated was ULTRA intelligence and other supplied by UK and the Cambridge spy ring
Pretty easy to set up Kursk as a giant trap when you know what the Germans were up to :p

Stalin's purges, he fell for the Nazis espionage because Stalin was a paranoid monster, made start of the Soviet war way worse than it had to be
Every country has its problems

Dilandu wrote:

lyonheart wrote:
Sorry you apparently misunderstood I wasn't criticizing Soviet operational art, I was criticizing its EXECUTION, and the soviet record demonstrates it was usually pretty horrible execution even when there was plenty of material.

Considering that "execution" led to German army being destroyed, I fail to see what the "execution problems" you mention. The high losses? The majority of Soviet losses were in wounded, who quickly returned to service due to actually excellent Soviet battlefield medicine (noted by British medical personnel). The majority of German losses, were prisoners & wounded, who do NOT quickly return to service due to abysmal state of German medicine (they still practices cauterization as normal, not emergency procedure, could you believe it?!). While we lost a lot of tanks, it was because we used them VERY actively & lacked the APC's for infantry support.

The execution I referred to was pitiful soviet execution of the doctrine and techniques they espoused, which after almost 4 years of war and vast amounts of US aid, had finally risen to a level able to absorb any desperate German counter attacks with some equanimity.

Why don't you mention how outnumbered the Germans were in tanks, artillery, aircraft, not to mention troops and trucks by the Soviet Army Front they attacked, they were doomed from the start and they knew it.

Because the same situation was on Western Front also. In both cases, Germans created a local superiority to attempt the breakthrough. In Ardennes, they managed that. Under Balaton, it turned into immediate disaster.[/quote]

Gee, 25 German divisions attack 55 Soviet is the same as 20 German attacking 6 US? Ri-i-ight!

L

Lyonheart
No worries!

Monty was a great planner and logistician...but yeah like McLellan of US Civil War...bit stodgy however that was more of an issue with him as time went on
Lot of folk got cautious cause of many issues
Personally I think Month and Patton get too much bad press...because they made their own for each other!
Britain though didn't have anyone with enough reputation, chutzpah etc to give a politically viable alternative to Monty

McArthur though, he was a #1 useless bum!

Oh hope you get your book complete and we can read it!

I'm not a "fan" of the British Empire, I can list it's crimes and stupidities en masse, sigh, but it did do a huge load for the world...like a certain Monty Python scene
However Empire's collapse post 1945 was a catastrophe for the world and US world policy after that...well we've all seen how it's went, sigh
A sane democratization of the Empire post 1918 would have been enormous help, but hey, the "Establishment" love their arrogant prerogatives....


Lol yeah Admiral King, another flaming asshole :p
Loved how sensible US navy officers ran rings round him to enable friendly US/UK naval cooperation
Just too many older officers with ego and probably serious mental problems on all sides
Decent officers I'm sure suffered severe stress and guilt :/

All these debates and actual political, economic etc issues post World War 2 do show that the chaotic situation in the fiction of Through Fiery Trials is plausible



Though I do wonder...how many of all these very convenient heart attacks: Duchairn, Greghor etc were checked for Federation cryogenic toxins....?
Time passes folk get old, death happen, but...still, anyone else thinking Chihiro and/or the Inquisition may be up to dirty tricks?

Dilandu wrote:Sigh. Jedwabne pogrom, Szczuczyn pogrom, and numerous other cases, when "nice, kindly" polish peoples massacred jews civilians. In some cases in 1941, German occupation fòrces (!!!) were forced to interfer to stop massacre.

I won't deny that those events took place. As far as i am aware, there were four of those cases ( so you cannot say that they were numerous). Additional thing is that first of all, it was during German occupation of poland, and the number of victims didn't exceed 3000. And the last, most important fact is that jewish population in Poland was the biggest one in Europe, so the probability of such events was much bigger.

Dilandu wrote:Tens of millions killed in Gulags... seriously? The whole population if Soviet Union by 1939 was about 170 millions, and you claim that nearly 20% of all population were detained (and another 20% presumably guarded them?)

Of course you're right this number is too high:

"According to a 1993 study of archival Soviet data, a total of 1,053,829 people died in the Gulag from 1934 to 1953."

from etty, Arch; Rittersporn, Gábor; Zemskov, Viktor (October 1993). "Victims of the Soviet penal system in the pre-war years: a first approach on the basis of archival evidence"

Of course even 1 million people is 1 million people too much.

Dilandu wrote:Please learn something besides child fairy tales about "bloody communists". The total numbers of detained from 1924 to 1954 was about 3,2 millions. Nothing to be proud about, I agree, but not the apocalyptic numbers. Especially if you consider than MUCH larger percent of Poland population was de-facto detained in jews ghettos.

Polish population of jews was detained in ghettos only during the GERMAN occupation, by GERMANS, not poles. Check your facts.

About 'fairy tales'. Please use arguments in your disscusion, instead of depreciating what others say.

Dilandu wrote:The history is not black and white, kid. It is gray and gray with sparkles of white and blots of black everywhere.

That's why we have to be responsible for what we are writing, and check our sources.

lyonheart wrote:
Gee, 25 German divisions attack 55 Soviet is the same as 20 German attacking 6 US; Ri-i-ight!

Andy why is that? Because Soviet command did not just shrug off the intelligence reports about German planned offensive, and quietly reinforced the line. While Allied command just decided that "eh, its impossible for them" and just sit idly until Germans strike.

Again the question of competence & experience.

SilverbladeTE wrote:Ammunition, fuel, spare parts, quality of items had all plummeted for the Red Army by the end, worn to a level the Stavka knew were a serious worry.
As well as the men being worn and losses that were extremely worrying

This, I would not deny. The USSR was terribly exausted by the end of World War 2, and in no shape for any new conflict. We could still fight - but we were unable to fight for long anymore.

Fortunately, no one wanted the new war (with the possible exception of Patton, but he clearly did not represent the majority of American population ). Both sides hoped for a lasting peace - or at least, some mutual understanding - and, also, USA and USSR happens to have a common goal: forcible dissolution of colonial empires)

Dilandu wrote:

lyonheart wrote:
Perhaps because they have such wonderful memories of the Katyn forest and other examples of soviet 'liberation' too numerous to mention.

After about 80000 Soviet POWs died in Poland camps in 1920s, USSR for "some reasons" wasnt very benevolent about Polish officers, you know...

I'm curious, how many Polish POW's were murdered by the soviets during and after that war, but I'll bet even if you know, you don't want to mention it for some reason.
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Show me where Poland ever made such massacres SOP that routine in the soviet union,

Sigh. Jedwabne pogrom, Szczuczyn pogrom, and numerous other cases, when "nice, kindly" polish peoples massacred jews civilians. In some cases in 1941, German occupation fòrces (!!!) were forced to interfer to stop massacre.

Please, again you wish hide the hundreds if not thousands of gulags, some apparently right inside Moscow etc, behind a handful if that of Polish massacres, how typically Russian.
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NTM murdering so many of their even their own people let alone starving millions of Ukrainians, Kazakhs, etc; or the tens of millions killed in the gulags or were they a myth too?.

Actually they are. The so-called Holodomor was the combination of stupidity of Party leadership (which eagerly believed the widely exaggerated claims about grain yield), the idiocity of local governments (which were so eager to please the superiors, that they took nearly all grain from Kolkhoz's, even the next year supply) and bad weather conditions. By combining, those three factors created the disaster... albeit during the Russian Empire such famines were pretty much regular.

Ri-ight.
So it was all just a misunderstanding, the incompetence of suck-ups, none of whom had any common sense or courage to speak out for some strange reason, not the fault of the party and its theology, just a few human frailties on display, nothing to see here, move along...

Ri-ight.

Regarding the near constant weather excuse, as one of the House of Lords remarked back in the 1980's, "why is the weather in socialist countries always worse than in capitalist countries?"

Indeed, its a marvel how universal such bad weather can be over such vast areas... for decades.
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Tens of millions killed in Gulags... seriously? The whole population if Soviet Union by 1939 was about 170 millions, and you claim that nearly 20% of all population were detained (and another 20% presumably guarded them?)

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Now I'm curious.

I've known Soviet figures cited for its population in 1940 that claimed to have 200 million, 180 million, and now your 170 million people; which was it and why that number is more trustworthy than all the other lies the soviets spouted?

I won't fall for your straw-man, yet even given 170 million people, the population growth claimed since the war is short by quite a bit to put it rather mildly, that some ascribe to rather higher loss figures, not just the pre-war stupidities.
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Please learn something besides child fairy tales about "bloody communists". The total numbers of detained from 1924 to 1954 was about 3,2 millions. Nothing to be proud about, I agree, but not the apocalyptic numbers. Especially if you consider than MUCH larger percent of Poland population was de-facto detained in jews ghettos.

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Oh, 3.2 million makes it all so much better, thank you -NOT

I find it telling that you can only point to Poland, your neighbor, to justify murderous Russian brutality, which proves more than you know.

The fact that you think admitting to 'only' 3.2 million people killed, who were as good or better than those killing them says a lot about your twisted sense of good and evil.[/quote]

The history is not black and white, kid. It is gray and gray with sparkles of white and blots of black everywhere.[/quote]

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Some histories are a lot whiter and less grey and black than others, but when you're Russian, obviously you try to dress up what you can, or think you can.

It's rather sad that the above is so representative of the modern Russian perspective, which is telling in itself, despite which they are still so patriotic, when there is so much to be ashamed of, so accepting of such mass murder, yet they want us to think they were eventually ultimately civilized by it all and thus somehow justified in the end.

How truly pathetic.

The Soviet Union and its communist criminals were a lot blacker than anything the US ever committed against the slaves or native Americans by orders of magnitude, however loathsome some of those things were.

The considerable contribution of Russians to western science and culture is considerably diminished if not completely overshadowed by those murderous criminals and their stupid excuse for a political philosophy.

Whereas, the US has demonstrated a far more free and bright uplifting culture, such an open land of opportunity that so many millions of people from around the world have sought out and added their own contributions to it, making the whole even stronger; shines upon the vast gulf between your point of view and classical western civilization that birthed the USA.

L

Dilandu wrote:Not to mention such "small" moments as Poland death camps for the Russian prisoners of war in 1920s, that Poland fight almost every single of her neighborhoods in 1920s, biting their territories, the fact that Poland eagerly sided with Hitler against Czech in 1938, and basically threatened to declare war against USSR, when Stalin attempted to support Prague...

First of all:

1. There were no such camps in 1920.
2. Here's the list of countries that Poland fought in 1920s:
-Soviet Union
First one was caused by attack of Soviet Union on Vilnus.
3. Poland did not side with Hitler - there was no treaty between Poland and Germany. But yes - taking Zaolzie was not honorable deed and should be condemned.
4. About threat when Stalin attempted to support Prague - can you show me the source so i can verify this?

And let me mention that before 1941 Soviet Union and Germany were in good relations. So, good that they decided to partition poland in Molotov - Ribbentrop pact.

Dilandu wrote:Basically Poland in XX century was the victim of idiocy of her own government, which dreamed about great Poland empire and colonial conquests.

Please give my examples of such dreams. As far as i know that was the soviet russia who attacked Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. Don't you think that it is a little bit imperialistic?