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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   4044 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 10, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Interesting. I've heard a lot of recommendations for LOGH, yet never watched it myself.

I read the light novels for 'Saga of Tanya the Evil' where an authoritarian capitalist HR manager gets murdered by someone he angers for firing him. He then manages to anger God by being too much of an atheist so is born as a poor orphan girl in not-Wilhelmine Germany with significant magical power, such that she's drafted for the mage-force around 12 and gets to fight in not-WW2 against a coalition manipulated behind the scenes by God.

It was interesting since I got a certain sense of the author's genuine interest in military tactics and the what-ifs of WW2. What if they march on for total victory in France, refusing to allow not-Dunkirk? What if they arm the minorities of the not-Soviet Union? Tanya gets a kampfgruppe later on, invents some combined arms warfare. There's discussion of the advantages of internal-lines of communication vs divided enemies amd various other ideas. I learnt that Soviet air defence was so amateurish that they let some random German pilot land a light aircraft in Red Square back in the real world. Thus Tanya decides to mount an air raid on Moscow, at which point not-Beria goes mad with lust upon seeing a pre-teen girl humiliating the not-Soviet Union. It's a fun story, where Tanya gets into all kinds of trouble due to misinterpreting the situation + God messing with her.

Also, there were some really unrealistically terrible generals in the real world. Fredendall for instance was comically incompetent:

Instead of using the standard military map grid-based location designators, he made up confusing codes such as "the place that begins with C." This practice was unheard-of for a general and distinguished graduate of the Command and General Staff School, who had been taught to always use standardized language and procedures to ensure clarity when transmitting orders under the stress of combat. Fredendall's informality often led to confusion among his subordinates, and precious time was lost attempting to discern his meaning.

Fredendall was given to speaking and issuing orders using his own slang, such as calling infantry units "walking boys" and artillery "popguns."

Fredendall rarely visited the front lines, and had a habit of disregarding advice from commanders who had been farther forward and had actually reconnoitered the terrain.[11] He split up units and scattered them widely,[12] and at critical defense points had positioned U.S. forces (against advice) too far apart for mutual support or effective employment of artillery, the strongest American arm.

Fredendall was barely on speaking terms with Ward, whom he had deliberately left out of operational meetings after Ward had repeatedly protested the separation of his command into weaker 'penny packet' forces distributed across various sectors of the front.

Allied forces were bereft of air support during critical attacks, and were frequently positioned by the senior command in positions where they could not support each other. Subordinates later recalled their utter confusion at being handed conflicting orders, not knowing which general to obey—Anderson or Fredendall.

Fredendall is one of those bizarre episodes of WW2 that's .. hard to believe but apparently happened.

Not that the war wasn't a clownshow in general - combat almost always is, but it's usually a way more serious and less obviously funny clownshow.

One could make a black comedy about Fredendall, the ordinary battlefield fuckups are just heartbreaking. And if they aren't, what happens to the other side is.

In the operational exercises the US Army conducted in the fall of 1941, 42 divisional, corps, and army commanders took part. General George Marshall (Army Chief of Staff) saw fit to relieve 31 of them afterwards. The next year, 20 of the Army's 27 division commanders were fired. Fredendall made it through both of these cullings.

That goes to show you how significant and severe the crisis of American military leadership was prior to the war, and gives you an indication of how someone like Eisenhower managed to go from Colonel to Supreme Allied Commander in under three years.

... I wonder how the war would have ended without someone like Marshall being in charge of the army.

The next big war is going to be a complete shitshow is my guess, because the things on reads about officer promotion boards are highly discouraging.

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