Draka vs TBO America

[Norseman]

I don't think it would work for the Caliphate, but for a different bunch of religious nuts who somehow have managed to develop high technology it might be an interesting idea.

Well simple trial and error without the scientific method can get you 19th Century technology, but no more than that. However being very religious doesn't mean you can't do science, as long as your religion accepts the following:

1. There is a material universe.
2. It functions according to rational rules.
3. Our senses can give us true information of the universe.
4. By gathering information about the universe we can understand the rules.

The problem comes when any organisation, religious or secular, says that reality had to adjust to the dictat of the party or Church; whether that leads to Lysenkoism or the persecution of Galileo it's just as bad for us.

I don't think we have a significant disagreement though, both of us are just picking at nits here.

The Caliphate needs to destroy its universities to preserve ideological purity, a native intelligencia would be very bad for them. That means they have to import foreign experts, and even if the experts were willing to go having the Caliphate recruit a lot of biowarfare experts would look... disturbing. Perhaps it could be done, after all people are amazingly willing to ignore warning signs.

Meh I've been here longer than I was planning, so take this as the third last post Third times the charm!

[Stuart]

Well, that's good. You've got a railway map of the Kolsky? I'm just wondering about where those would be stationed. Or, it would be in vinicity of Leningrad where the artillery shootouts happen?

The guns are down by Leningrad. The German ones have been brought down for the seige and stayed in place to support the front when the siege was broken. The Russian and American guns were brought in for counter-battery work. There's a problem in the Peninsula, since everything comes in by sea, fuel is in short supply so aircraft missions tend to be limited.

However, a railway map of the Peninsula would be very helpful though, once again, thank you very much for the thoughtful offer.

[Dark Hellion]

Galileo wasn't persecuted for his belief, he was persecuted for directly disobeying the pope and then refusing to apologize. The "great men of science" model of history was responsible for the tripe that Galileo was ever treated even the slightest bit unfairly. He was given so much leniency because he was good at science, revolutionary, and the Catholic Church was interested in furthering science (they were the major fund source of all of acedemia at the time), but he was such a complete asshole that they finally had to punish him with house arrest in an expensive mansion where he ate the same food that nobles of the time did. They didn't even punish him when he illegally published a work while under house arrest.
Galileo was just a prick who any other hierarchal group would have executed years before the Pope did anything to him.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Re: The railway guns, are 'Big Bertha' and her kind still in existence in TBO?

[Norseman]

Galileo was just a prick who any other hierarchal group would have executed years before the Pope did anything to him.

He committed the breach of etiquette of publishing in Italian rather than Latin, this is a bit like a scientist publishing in a non-peer reviewed magazine hoping that he can make the people believe in it and that it will filter up from them into the scientific environment. So that pisses off the scientists quite thoroughly.

Now then the Pope asks him to write an unbiased account of the two world views, and to use the Popes arguments in said book, not supporting nor denigrating either writing. In other words: "Okay Copernicus, look, write a book with a dialogue between supporters of the Earth Centric world view, you know the scientific world view that just about every single scientist in the world supports; and the Heliocentric worldview, you know the one that... uhm... well lets be honest it's pretty much just you and your friends that back this one. Its okay though, as long as you don't attack either view, but just give a presentation and a dialogue between them I'll bless and finance this book."

He writes a book that totally ridicules the Earth Centric (or rather the Artistotelian) world view and places the popes arguments in the mouth of Simplicus, to add to this he also writes the book in Italian rather than Latin; this is roughly the equivalent of publishing in a non-peer reviewed magazine in the hopes that the common people will accept it and force the scientists to do the same.

Some people say that Copernicus didn't realise just what a bad idea this triple whammy was, but not only did he alienate his supporters, he gave his opponents more grist for the mill.

Moreover he didn't even address the Tychonic System another heliocentric system that was becoming popular. So he did the equivalent of publishing in a non-peer reviewed magazine, defending his theory against an older theory, while completely ignoring newer theories.

Why would he do this? Well here comes the fun part... Galileo had not presented sufficient proof for his message, sure he was right, but Wegener was right about continental drift. Just because you happen to be right doesn't meant that you have evidence, and you need a lot of evidence if you want to overthrow the leading scientific theory. He could not disprove the Tychonic System with the mathematics and instruments that he had at his disposal, and that system or the Aristotelian had the backing of the vast bulk of the scientific community.

Later the quality of telescopes improved, and with that the Aristotelian and Tychonic Systems crumbled, but that time was not yet there.

So now he's pissed everyone off, he's promoting a crazy idea that he can't back experimentally, imagine the kook that shouts: "But my theory answers everything!" and the scientists go "Yes but not as well as our theory, which is a development from earlier theories, and is accepted by the scientific community." Sometimes the kook is right, sometimes the kook is a genius.

So now was he railroaded at the trial? It would seem so, at least to some degree, letters were "found", prohibitions backdated, and he was eventually sentenced to house arrest.

While in house arrest he received guests, he dined well, and he spent the last years of his life studying and working on his magnus opus, it was indeed hardly a dank dungeon cell. He was not mistreated in any way, not denied books or company, just kept from making more mischief while he lived.

In short that whole mess is a lot more complicated than many people think, but in the end a lot of scientists wanted to silence Velikovsky, there's talk of locking up people to deny global warming; scientists can be just as bad at silencing dissenting voices as anyone else, the strength of our system is freedom of speech. Anyone can say whatever they want, and we can argue it out in public. Such freedom of speech was unknown in the age Galileo lived, and it didn't matter if you were in the Papal states or the secular Most Serene Republic of Venice.

[K. A. Pital]

For Stuart:
Oktyabrskaya railroad:
http://railway.by.ru/Maps/31_r1_c1.jpg
Leningradskaya railroad:
http://railway.by.ru/Maps/21_r1_c1.jpg

Murmanskaya (Kirovskaya) railroad maps are hard to come by, I'll PM you if I get one over e-mail from VIF.

[Dark Hellion]

It is worse than that Norse, the Pope offered to pay for Galileo's book because Galileo had a bad tendancy to wander around Rome picking fights with clergyman and basically calling them all kinds of names while he argued. It's a bit like walking into congress and calling them all assholes. You could get away with it (barely) but it wasn't a good idea and anyone with half a brain should have realized the consequences.
He wasn't railroaded at trial. The Popes own cousin was the equivelent of his defence attorney, and half of the church officials judging him were on his side. The initial sentence was to read a public apology to the pope, an apology that didn't even require him to take back any of his own ideas or theories. But Galileo refused to do so. As you can imagine this really pissed the pope off, because he had basically granted a handslap pardon for what could be seen as direct heresy and Galileo would have none of it. So then the Pope came down on him like a ton of rectangular building objects, made him publicly denounce Heliocentricism and sentenced him to house arrest in a nice villa with good food. Galileo went along this time because he may have been an arrogant prick, but he wasn't completely retarded and to refuse was to be tortured and executed, because you don't spit in the eye of the Pope twice and walk away (at least with all the important bits still attached).
It was a bit of horrific historical revisionism in the 1800's that wanted to elevate a small number of men from each time period as the "only" important people in the time period. It's why you know about ten times as much about Jefferson, Washington, and Franklin then you do about some of the other founding fathers, or you know more about Wilson than you do Creel. The little players aren't supposed to matter, and anyone who stands in the way of the big players is bad.

[MKSheppard]

In short the question shouldn't be how the fighting is carried out and what the OoBs are, the question should be why there's any fighting going on at all.

Except in 1941, allying with Nazi Germany is a much better proposition than in OTL. There's no Britain hanging around as a gadfly, pinpricking the edges of German control; so the benefits of allying with the Germans to gain lost Finnish territory are better than they are in OTL.

With Nazi Germany actually doing much better than in OTL, with Moscow falling in '42, and the Germans not suffering major reversals in any of their holdings until I'd suspect '44-'45 (when the US Army in Russia becomes a major fighting force and probably wins some battles), what reason is there to look for the exit?

By the time it looks like things are turning into a meatgrinder that nobody can win '46-'47, Finland would be looking for the exit, like she was in '44-45 in OTL as Nazi fortunes declined. The big problem is that nobody's going to accept a "Sorry about that, here, have some territory." peace, since the world has been exposed to the nasty truth about the Germans on the Eastern Front, so Finland is going to have a lot less diplomatic options open to her than were available in OTL.

It may be that Finnish Diplomats and Politicans will be praising the Lord, and offering lots of gifts to God when TBO happens, since with Germany now removed from the map, they can quickly conclude a Peace with the Russians and everyone else, while everyone is still staring at the broken ruins of Germany.

The peace will probably be very very very crippling, but the Finns won't care, they'll leap through the door before anyone starts thinking..."hey, what about the Finns, weren't they German allies for years?"

Also the vast majority of any German troops would be at the front, if you want to backstab them then that's easy, suddenly their supplies stop and their allies turn against them while the enemy attack at the same time.

Uhm....That wouldn't be a very smart thing to do. Sure, you'd be isolating the German troops fighting in north-eastern Finland, but Finland is essentially surrounded by the Germans, who have a lot of options open to them like invasion across the Baltic ala Norway (the German Navy is much more powerful in this TL than in OTL, at least until '45 when it's destroyed), or a land invasion from the south from the Leningrad/Vyborg axis.

[MKSheppard]

More to the point, the Germans aren't stupid, and can see the possible effects of a finland going wobbly on them in regards to their strategic planning and possible loss of troops trapped in North-Eastern Finland.

They can see for themselves that Finland is getting a bit wobbly in the later part of the war, and how disastrous a finnish flip would be to their plans; so why not station a couple of divisions across finland for the purpose of "keeping the finns honest", in much the same way the US Army once had a fort in Salt Lake City on a hill, with artillery directly sighted in on the Mormon Temple, to keep the Mormons Honest.

[Norseman]

I will repeat the statement I made earlier:

If you want to argue what I said you should go talk to the people at soc.history.what-if (a newsgroup), most of the arguments I offer come from the discussions there so instead of having me relay the arguements go straight to the source.

There are several Finns there who are quite knowledgeable about history and could give you valuable insights into how the Finns view the war. Also World War Two scenarios are very popular there, and they've rehashed all the arguments over and over, so if you're really interested in testing your timeline this is the place.

I know that you for one posted there MKSheppard, so go ahead, talk to them, they know a lot more about this scenario than anyone on this board. Notice that there was one guy (who is not a regular) who argued with you about the B-36, the others discussed the timeline (and incidentally pointed out the obvious flaws big enough to drive a truck through). Alternate history is what they do, and even the popular scenarios are nitpicked severely.

If you are convinced that you are right then there's another reason: soc.history.what-if netizens buy books, alternate history books to be precise, there are a *lot* of lurkers there. If you can defend your history and the story aspects you would get more buyers too.

So if you're confident in your alternate history, and thinks it'll stand up to scrutiny, by all means go down there.

Or you could say "this is not serious alternate history, it's a 'be careful what you wish for' cautionary tale, so obviously there are a lot of things that don't make sense." If that is so go with Robert Harris' approach in "Fatherland"; be very vague about how the scenario came about and then get right on with the story.

[K. A. Pital]

Alternate history is what they do, and even the popular scenarios are nitpicked severely.

See, there's a difference between nitpicking and having a core falsifyability argument.

Saying that Finland _could_ have behaved more rationally in alt-history and switch sides is nitpicking and guesstimating.

Saying that the Germans _could_ force Finland to fight for them, especially if they were doing better than they did in reality, is _fact_. Which remains true in both real life and alt-history fiction.

[Norseman]

Alternate history is what they do, and even the popular scenarios are nitpicked severely.

See, there's a difference between nitpicking and having a core falsifyability argument.

Saying that Finland _could_ have behaved more rationally in alt-history and switch sides is nitpicking and guesstimating.

Saying that the Germans _could_ force Finland to fight for them, especially if they were doing better than they did in reality, is _fact_. Which remains true in both real life and alt-history fiction.

Ah yes, this is your way of saying that you have no interest in consulting authorities on the Finnish point of view in the Winter War? Well that's your prerogative of course, but at the very least you should go there to get their viewpoints and benefit from their considerable experience in alt-Winter War discussions.

If you go over there and tell them that, give them their argument, if there are flaws in the argument they'll find it. If there are no flaws they might still provide interesting information and additional data that would benefit your story.

That goes for anyone who writes Alternative History, you can really benefit a lot from hanging around in soc.history.what-if.

I am worried by the fact that some people seem to think that The Big One is serious alternative history; the take over of Britain for one, and the Commonwealth expelling Britain, very, very weird stuff. Once more it was discussed extensively in this thread and once more you (universal you not aiming at you Stas Bush) need to address several of the questions asked about the historical background.

* The German takeover of Britain.
* Commonwealth expelling Britain
* And a lot of other stuff.

Now the defenders of the TBOverse don't have to explain any of this to me, but it wouldn't hurt and might benefit to go over there and ask around, for help and insights.

Some people have asked me why I bother with the TBOverse, in as much as it's pretty unrealistic, and its' creator seems unable to notice when he's been discredited on an issue (Islam) the answer is this:

For the same reason I wrote a review of Harry Harrisons "Stars and Stripes Forever", the same reason that I instigated the DrakaFic project, and wrote several of the stories there. I considered the alt-hist to be seriously deficient and I wanted to point out these weaknesses, since history is a passion of mine.

That review of "Stars and Stripes Forever" was, incidentally, greatly helped by the people at soc.history.what-if, and they were equally helpful in critiquing the various aspects of the Draka stories.

Anyway I guess third time wasn't the charm, I keep getting suckered back into the thread when someone brings up some peripheral historical aspect or theological matter (Islam is fascinating)! But as they say in Norway "Third times the charm, and the fourth often comes along," so adieu I have my own things to do.

[K. A. Pital]

Ah yes, this is your way of saying that you have no interest in consulting authorities on the Finnish point of view in the Winter War?

There is no "finnish point of view", there are facts. And I'm frankly more interested in the point of view of the then-Finnish authorities on the war, and their decisions and political moves, which we have as a factual basis. This factual basis proves quite well - the Finns would not abandon Germany, especially if it's a period of German success, after several defeats. Them switching over sides in OTL reqiured decisive actions from the USSR and the near-end of Germany itself as reasons strong enough to go over.

That goes for anyone who writes Alternative History, you can really benefit a lot from hanging around in soc.history.what-if.

I know. I just don't post to groups. I read them, however.

I am worried by the fact that some people seem to think that The Big One is serious alternative history

The original TBO is one of the more serious alternative history works. It doesn't fuck up the tech (which most of alt-history _does_), it operates relatively plausible political realities, even if the military results of German actions in the East are stretched to, well, quite improbable results.

I mean, compared to other stuff, like Draka, various libertopias and many other nosensical alt-history, the TBO is certainly _waay_ above their level.

[Stuart]

There is no "finnish point of view", there are facts. And I'm frankly more interested in the point of view of the then-Finnish authorities on the war, and their decisions and political moves, which we have as a factual basis. This factual basis proves quite well - the Finns would not abandon Germany, especially if it's a period of German success, after several defeats. Them switching over sides in OTL reqiured decisive actions from the USSR and the near-end of Germany itself as reasons strong enough to go over.

Once again, exactly right Grazhdanin Stas. I note that these much-vaunted "authorities" on Finland don't appear to know that there was a Continuation War (sorry to use that designator; I know it was just another front in the Great Patriotic War but it serves to distinguise the 41-44 fighting from the Winter War). That really makes all the whining about why would Finland fight superfluous; historically the facts are that they did and they stuck with the Germans until it became obvious that Germany was losing - which, in the TBOverse, is very suddenly in June 1947. That's pretty standard for the website quoted though, I used to read some bits of it but, like spacebattles.com, the ignorance and sheer stupidity got too annoying. I've yet to find any objections on those sites that was worth the effort of discussing. Every one of them collapsed after a few minutes of investigation. Mostly, they're just a bunch of very young kids who are upset because those "really cool Nazis" got the snot kicked out of them.

One of these days Grazhdanin, I'll tell you the real story behind why Norseman is so pissed off with me. It's nothing to do with TBO per se., everything to to with elementary aerodynamics. When I do get around to it , you'll see why I don't pay any attention to anything he says.

even if the military results of German actions in the East are stretched to, well, quite improbable results.

That's a bit of dramatic license I agree. Ericcson pretty much reckons that the German Army had shot its bolt by late 1942 and it wasn't going to get much further. Beevor comes to much the same conclusions although he reaches them a different way. An old friend of mine is a Major General and a trained staff officer and the assessment I got there was that the logistics of getting much beyond the 1941 line in the North and Stalingrad in the south are pretty gruesome, I've skirted around that a bit and given the Germans credit for some very effective improvision. So, in terms of military and historian professionals, that final German stop line is far too far to the east.

That's where we have to dilute military reality with the needs of tellinga good story. From a story point of view, a final stop line along the Great Bend of the Volga is convenient, it gives lots of room for manoever and stresses just how strongly-placed the Germans were before the bombing. If I was doing an alternative history of the Great Patriotic War based on sound military practice, I'd probably put the final German line much further west than that. It's even questionable if it would be very much beyond Moscow itself. (My Major General friend seriously questions whether the German Army could have taken Moscow in 1941, suggesting that Tula really marked the end of the line. Logistics again.)

Thank's for the kind words Stas, a lot of hard work by defense professionals went into getting the military details right. The industrial and economic side of things was very carefully costed out from the cash money, resources and production points of view. I'm lucky, I work for a specialist company in the defense industry and we have access to lots of interesting stuff on production and resource data. The political side of things is always tenuous in any alternative history simply because the things that were most likely to happen were, by and large, the things that did happen. As a result, almost by definition, an alternative history is less likely and less plausible than the real history. However, I think the environment cooked up for the TBOverse serves as a good story-telling framework. Some of the bits in it are a bit stretched but the general message, that the effect of an eight-year rather than a six-year World War Two combined with a Pacific largely at peace throughout that period, is going to greatly increase the economic significance of the Pacific axis as opposed to the European axis, is fairly much on point. After all, that's what's happening now, TBO just brought the whole switch forward by four decades.

Thank you very much for the railway maps, I've downloaded them, they're just what I needed. I can understand how hard some of the maps further north must be, we once needed the road/rail maps of the area around Severodonetsk but couldn't get them. We ended up making do with pictures (taken from VERY high up )

One last thought on Finland. You know, that place was much better off when your people ran it. Why don't you take it back?

[Lonestar]

One last thought on Finland. You know, that place was much better off when your people ran it. Why don't you take it back?

Maybe we'll finally see the Leopard 2 in action then *thumbs up*

[K. A. Pital]

I can understand how hard some of the maps further north must be

I have some 1936, 1940, 1952 and 1985 map collections and an old USSR atlas. However, the maps of the Kirov/Murmansk railroad are from 1985 only. Which is clearly not what you need. You need a 1940 or 1952 map.

Ericcson pretty much reckons that the German Army had shot its bolt by late 1942 and it wasn't going to get much further.

The problem is, German military command totally botched Barbarossa, making it an adventurism-ridden play from the start. They seriously underestimated the USSR and the Army in general.

The main key problems of Germans were:
a) unrealistic goals (the destruction of the Cadre Army and the A-A line before winter)
b) unrealistic terms as a result of those goals (they started failing the terms of advancement right in the beginning; they were fast, but not _as fast_ as necessary), and the Army was not destroyed and did not lose it's military capability as a unit (unlike Poland)
c) reluctance to realize they're in a total war as early as Autmn 1941 and ensue total mobilization of industry and population, as well as their military reserve used to replenish losses of 41/42 which were pretty much replaced at a rather slow pace

If Germany realized that it was in a total war earlier, and commited all of it's industrial might (and occupied Europe too), it could've been the "winner" of this total war somewhere in 43, perhaps, but not anything beyond a bloody stalemate.

So, not only were the Germans, strategically very poor planners (albeit they compensated this with masterful tactics), they also generally did not comprehend the most important strategic decision, that they're in a total war and need to commit.

When they started pumping up into a total war mode in 43, it was too late already. US and USSR were fully mobilized and their economies were re-oriented for total war.

[Norseman]

I'm not answering because of the thread or the technical aspect, except to say that none of the soc.history.what-if experts on Finland bothered to comment on the thread. If you pop on by and make a few posts defending your story I'm sure they'll show up, but that's not relevant now...

This however is:

One of these days Grazhdanin, I'll tell you the real story behind why Norseman is so pissed off with me. It's nothing to do with TBO per se., everything to to with elementary aerodynamics. When I do get around to it , you'll see why I don't pay any attention to anything he says.

Mr Slade I ignored the vendetta bullshit the first time you pulled it out. Given how obviously angry you were, I mean your spelling, grammar and punctuation went all out of whack whenever you talked to me, I thought it was just a "waaa waaa you're only arguing because you got a vendetta with me!" quote.

Now however I'm beginning to realise you were serious!

So what on earth could it be? And why wouldn't you bring it up?

The obvious answer is that you're not bringing it up because it'll make you look very bad if someone unbiased was to read it. I'm not quite sure why you'd think I was angry with you over it since I was actually quite grateful for what you did, and acted on your suggestions.

During the DrakaFic project I got the idea of writing a story called Two Stars over Astrakhan (it is also here on SD.net).

The idea is basically that the USAAF sets up an airbase near Astrakhan to bomb Drakan airfields and factories, and help intercept Drakan transport on the Caspian sea.

The point of view changes in each chapter, from ground staff to pilots, basically the idea is to give an overall feel of the place. Stuart actually liked the story according to his comments at the time:

Firstly. I've read the latest part of Stars and the rewrite of the earlier section. The rewrite is a great improvement over the original; it rings true now. The story of the air attack on the radar station is also very good, well put together and gripping.

So what were his objections?

They were in regards to Chapter II Dogfight (also here on SDnet) which coincidentally has a dogfight in it.

His objections to the original writing was that:

1. The Drakan aircraft were too heavily armoured (they shrugged of .50 bullets).
2. A bomb won't explode if you shoot at it (yes I did that, it sounded cool).

So I corrected those, I increase the damage a bit, and I fixed it so that the pilot shot down the Drakan aircraft by shooting off the propeller rather than shooting the bombs.

Now understand, the DrakaFics are silly, and I certainly do not take any offence if anyone tells me that my aircombat scenes are wonky (I list freaking BIGGLES as my main source!) They're meant to be slightly gritty adventure stories, and when it comes to weapons I generally just run with what the Writers Guide says.

However you can read the entire discussion of that story here and you'll see Stuart giving me some good advice on how to correct the technical aspects of my writing.

Advice that I accepted and used to rewrite the story, I was in fact quite grateful that there was an expert there to correct my mistakes and tell me what to do; it means I'll learn something, I can correct mistakes, and that will improve the stories. I don't mind this, it's one of the benefits of publishing online, you got tons of people who can critique and then you can act on it right away.

That is pretty much what I do when someone tells me that there are problems with my stories, and every now and again there is. I mean I got people that will IM me and go "No you can't do <whatever> in that story! Seriously what were you thinking?" I like that it shows that they've read the story and have some suggestions to make it better.

You'll also notice bringing up aspects of the books to keep the discussion going, a good exchange of opinions is the best way to learn and Stuart brought a lot of information to bear. At one point I did defend Stirling outright, and that was in regards to his story telling abilities; say what you like the writing is good, he wouldn't sell as much as he does otherwise. I don't feel that Stuart has quite the same literary talent, though others are free to disagree with me.

This is the only time that I've discussed anything resembling aerodynamics with Stuart, well discussion is a bit much it was mostly me going: "Gee golly Stirling said this..." and Stuart going "Ah, but you see..." and then me going "Wow! You're right! I'll fix that story right away."

I should also add that I do mention the story negatively at one point on SpaceBattles. When the discussion got to whether or not The Big One was well written I argued that it wasn't, and that the lack of quality was probably because you didn't recognise bad writing when you saw it; then in that context I presented a piece of writing that I had written and that I knew were bad, and which you had praised.

The Air Combat scene simply isn't one of my best pieces of writing because I've never read much about, or been overly interested in, fighter combat or airplanes. As a result a lot of it became very clichéd, because clichés and other peoples advice from air simulators were my main sources, and as a result of that the section just didn't work too well.

I'm not too happy about the Ground Attack scene either, the introduction I think is good, but I don't really think the rest of it works it's too contrived in various ways. Then again DrakaFic is very silly so it doesn't hurt too much.

Now instead of bringing this up, instead of bringing the accusation out in the open and going "Norseman you're just pissed because of these posts!" you kept making snide remarks and trying to poison the discussion. Well I've brought it out into the open, there was no big argument, and there is no vendetta because of Aerodynamics of all things!

What you think I got a vendetta against Harry Harrison and S.M. Stirling now? I spent months hunting down references to write my enormous review of Harrisons "Stars and Stripes Forever." I've spent over a year writing stories in the DrakaFicVerse, I must have one hell of a Vendetta against Stirling!

So here's my hobby psychologist thought: You couldn't understand why on Earth anyone would criticize your creation, after all this is the first time that anyone came up with questions and arguments that you couldn't counter. So what could it be? It couldn't be that you goofed, while some idiot on the internet showed you up! Oh no! He had to have a Vendetta against you because you told him what's what at some point, so livid with anger (please note once more how bad his spelling and punctuation got when he replied to me) you went looking for the Real Reason.

I think also that deep down you know this is true, if you didn't you would have come out in the open about it, shown the links and said "and here you can see why Norseman is angry with me." Instead you go "I know the real reason why he's upset!" in typical poison letter no evidence fashion.

Now the cats out of the bag... guys, please, take a look at the links and make up your own mind. Remember though who provided the links, remember who backed his case with real arguments and evidence, and who made snide remarks about vendettas and real reasons. Normally I would not be so direct in my speech, but when outright calumnies are levelled against me I have to speak up.

One last thought on Finland. You know, that place was much better off when your people ran it. Why don't you take it back?

You know... I'm not sure this is some sort of attempt to provoke me, or if you're just being juvenile because someone argued with you about Finland, but it doesn't look good either way.

[Stuart]

The problem is, German military command totally botched Barbarossa, making it an adventurism-ridden play from the start. They seriously underestimated the USSR and the Army in general.

Absolutely; there's an interesting quotation (in TBO I attributed it ro Rokossovski but it actually came from Sandhurst) that goes to the effect "the operational efficiency of the German General Staff was such that it allowed them to take on almost the whole of the western world simultaneously. Their strategic incompetence can be measured by the fact they never asked why they were taking on the whole of the rest of the world. I believe it was General Sir John Hackett who came up with that one.

The main key problems of Germans were:
a) unrealistic goals (the destruction of the Cadre Army and the A-A line before winter)

I'd certainly agree with that. I think the problem is that they simply didn't understand how much space Russia provides. They were used to fighting in a west European environment where vital strategic areas are relatively close to the front line and a dense stransportation network exists. They looked at the maps they had of Russia and didn't comprehend the implications of the distances involved. In western Europe, enveloping and destroying the frontier defense armies, almost axiomatically put the German Army in a position to strike at the vital strategic areas. In Russia, the same exercise left them almost in the middle of nowhere and with a long way to go. Reading Ericsson, I get the picture of the German Army chasing eastwards, always looking for that one last great encirclement, the one final battle that would put them in reach of their strategic objectives. Eventually, they over-reached their supply lines and that set them up for dismemberment by Zhukov's Siberians

b) unrealistic terms as a result of those goals (they started failing the terms of advancement right in the beginning; they were fast, but not _as fast_ as necessary), and the Army was not destroyed and did not lose it's military capability as a unit (unlike Poland)

Again, I agree. The Russian Army along the frontier died but it started the process of putting the Germans behind schedule right from the start. The great encirclements didn't really help the Germans too much, those encirclements had to be reduced and its interesting to note how the Russian infantry in particular fought on after encirclement. That drained off German infantry in an effort to reduce those encircled units. I think we need to remember the Partisans as well here - even after the encircled Russian units collapsed, very often their cadres fought on as Partisans and that both drained off more German troops and snarled up supply lines. Supply lines are like shipping lanes, they work much better when left to run on an individual basis. Once the need for convoying supplies (whether by ships or trucks) and protecting those convoys slides in, shipping efficiency plummets (in the good old days, we reckoned that simply instituting convoys cost about 40 percent of available shipping efficiency, so the subs win a virtual attrition victory of destroying half the enemy merchant ships without ever leaving port. Same applies to trucks and land convoys), I think the Partisans were a major factor in slowing the German advance down, one that in teh West has never been given due credit.

c) reluctance to realize they're in a total war as early as Autmn 1941 and ensue total mobilization of industry and population, as well as their military reserve used to replenish losses of 41/42 which were pretty much replaced at a rather slow pace

This is a strange one, on a genuine strategic level I agree with you. However, there is a big political factor here we have to bear in mind. Hitler was pitching his various wars as being short, low-cost affairs that could be conducted quickly without much impact on the home front. Therefore, to make that line credible, he had to preserve as much of the peacetime spirit as he could. That meant that peacetime production and attitudes had to go largely unchecked. It's interesting to note, for example, that Sauer & Sohn was making civilian rifles up to 1943! They were assembling Kar98ks certainly (I have a 1942 Sauer Kar98k - a Russian Capture of course) but they were also making civilian weapons - there was a civilian rifle made by that company in 1943 on the market not long ago.

That made it very difficult for him to fully mobilize earlier. In fact, the political campaign to allow a full wartime mobilization seems only to have started with Stalingrad; that's when Goebbels did the campaign for an austerity "Soldier's Christmas" to show solidarity with the troops cut off in Stalingrad. previous German "wartime" christmasses had been full civilian standard.

Assuming the same political campaign would have been needed for an earlier full mobilization, that suggests it would have to have started between 8 months and a year earlier. In other words, after the fall of France. Now, that would have raised the interesting question "why?" Who is the target of this full mobilization? There's only one possible answer to that and it would be a very strong piece of evidence that an attack on Russia was impending. Now, in the weeks prior to the launch of Barbarossa, Stalin ignored a lot of intelligence that told him an attack was coming because it came either from the British (allegedly, in Stalin's eyes at least, to lure Russia into coming to Britain's aid), spies (who may have been turned) or German traitors (who might have been playing their own game, perhaps to lure Russia into a disastrous attack). But if Germany is overtly doing a full mobilization for a massive campaign with a propaganda campaign to match, that's very powerful evidence from the Germans themselves of what's about to happen. There's a very good chance that it would have convinced Stalin to believe everything else and that would have had horrible implications for the German assault. For example, taking one possible course of action, he could have pulled the Russian Armies back from the frontier so they weren't overwhelmed by the initial blows. That would have had major impacts further down the line.

If Germany realized that it was in a total war earlier, and commited all of it's industrial might (and occupied Europe too), it could've been the "winner" of this total war somewhere in 43, perhaps, but not anything beyond a bloody stalemate.

I think no matter which way we cut it, a bloody stalemate is the best the Germans can achieve. The key point is where? Short of Moscow (assuming things don't go as well for them) or somewhere beyond Moscow (assuming things go very well)? The problem the Germans face then is what happens in the west. The increasing length of the Russian Front as one goes eastwards is the real swine. It drinks troops and if there is an invasion in the west that requires a force commitment to hold that line, then those troops won't be there. My Major General friend makes a big thing of that increasing front length, believes that it alone makes an invasion of Russian from the west virtually impossible.

So, not only were the Germans, strategically very poor planners (albeit they compensated this with masterful tactics), they also generally did not comprehend the most important strategic decision, that they're in a total war and need to commit. When they started pumping up into a total war mode in 43, it was too late already. US and USSR were fully mobilized and their economies were re-oriented for total war.

Which really brings us back to the point that the way Nazi Germany was set up, total commitment and mobilization was a very difficult thing to achieve. They only really managed it when the war turned disastrous on them and they had to mobilize or lose. It's interesting to note that the sudden emergence of plots against Hitler fits almost exactly with that swing to full mobilization. It's certainly arguable that if Germany had fully mobilized earlier, those plots would have picked up in frequency earlier and Hitler's luck would have run out sometime. Or, if it didn't, the resulting internal security crackdown would have further inhibited the smooth functioning of the German war machine.

Which really goes to the main point; Hitler lost WW2 the moment he invaded Russia. A fter that, everything was just filling in the dotted lines.

[The Yosemite Bear]

you know there's enough sniping in this thread, that I'm washing my hands of it. sorry, It's no fun for me to see a thread degenerate too much.