Comments by "bakters" (@bakters) on "TIKhistory"
channel.
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You are such a smart guy, that it genuinely boggles my mind when you have troubles following what I would consider to be a very basic reasoning.
Let's consider late war war 2.
Q: Are Germans capable of offensive operations?
A: Only to a very limited degree.
Q: So why are you surprised that they preferred to use their tanks defensively instead of offensively?
A: ????
Regarding spear and shield. - It's not used the way you seem to think it was used. You do not hold it out, you keep it close in, in an overhand grip, sometimes even with the point hidden behind the shield itself. Then, you do not "poke" at the enemy. You throw at them, but "catch" the spear before it leaves your grip. Spear and shield combat is done at a fairly close range. Sure, you'd still have a reach advantage over sword and shield, but late republic / early empire legions carried thrown weapons to diminish this disadvantage. Both legions also worn swords, so that did not change.
You can carry either a javelin or a spear into battle. Take your pick.
In other words - Early legions had better reach due to throwing weapons, late legions sacrificed this advantage for a more effective close combat weapon. Exactly the opposite to what you have suggested.
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I wouldn't dismiss Monty so quickly. I'm sure he was aware of the situation around Antwerp, and if he considered the immediate push to the west incorrect, I suspect there were reasons for it. Ike also was capable of pretending to "know it all" from the start, especially with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.
What I mean by all that, is that the defense of Rhine estuary did not require huge amounts of supplies being shipped constantly. Clearing it would still be a difficult task, whether the German troops were totally cut off, or not. Does it really make sense to spend your troops to do so, while you have an easier target right to the East? More profitable target too, since defeating it allows you to poor more reinforcements into the vital bridgehead.
Regarding push towards Rhur and Berlin, I think it was on the cards. Maybe not before Christmas, but who knows? There is a big difference in the amount of required strength between winning a battle in the open against uprepared enemy, and brute-forcing a highly contested and well prepared defences on the Rhine.
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@SoMuchFacepalm " The old stuff is still there. [...] No contradiction "
What if I borrowed a car from you, then returned it crashed?
Would you still maintain with similar zeal, that it's the same car, bro!
I know I would... ;-)
More seriously, apparently there are objects which are exactly identical. Like, each electron is exactly the same as another electron. There is no such thing as a "broken" electron. If I borrowed one electron from you, there is no way I could cheat you, by returning a similar but different electron.
Then there is no contradiction (and Heraclitus was incorrect, since some things do not change).
Otherwise contradiction exists, but it's caused by our imprecise language and logic that we use. We say "the same", when we mean "so similar, that it makes no difference".
Honestly, I think I solved it.
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@darkoneforce2 " virtually anything moving towards the front "
Soviets did that. To a lesser degree, but the scale W. Allies did it was of questionable value.
Basically, instead of the dream of destroying the enemy forces before they reach the frontline, you simply limit their mobility. They have to camouflage, hide, move at night, drag some defenses with them, but once they do that, it's very ineffective. People keep making YT videos trying to puzzle out why anybody would do it at all, THAT ineffective!
With that said, Soviets did such missions. Apart from bombing Frenchmen. They weren't any good at it, apparently.
" The sacrifice of bombers didn't change the fact that the US achieved total air superiority. "
But at what cost? You risk a heavy bomber in exchange for a chance to get a fighter? That's a really bad trade.
One could argue, that it would be better to use those assets more carefully, and simply deal with some enemy air presence, but that would make way too much sense...
" The american planes were simply better "
Nah. You guys simply had more of a much better aviation fuel. That's the whole difference.
" boom and zoom tactics "
That's "hit and run" in common lingo. Meaning, you take a potshot and scram, leaving the assets you were expected to protect unprotected.
Brilliant!
" german planes when they had to land due to running out of fuel "
While they were defending Germany ? Right on top of their airbases?
Okay, that's enough. I stop here.
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@seanmac1793 " the object of the narrow front [is to go] through there and into Germany "
Yes, eventually . The immediate object was to cut off the ports and clear them.
The irony of the whole situation was, that regardless if you like the narrow or the broad front strategy, you still need the ports. So you must attack in the North first , no matter what.
The obvious advantage of the narrow front approach was that they could do it immediately, when the enemy was weak.
" You don't put an army group commander over another army group commander "
Of course, those petty little narcissts would totally flip out if you'd do that...
I'm so bitter, because I'm from Poland, and that was the last chance for us to become independent. The W. Allies could have taken Berlin. For two reasons:
1. They'd be faster if they took the ports half a year earlier.
2. What was the alternative for the losing Germans? Soviet occupation, and they really didn't want that.
With the W. Allies right around the corner, we'd be able to keep Poland free. There would be a nation wide uprising if necessary. It already almost happened. The armed resistance against the commies went on for the next 20 years, and there was practically no chance for a successful resolution. If there was a chance, we'd go for broke.
All of that at stake, much different shape of the Cold War, because the West is much stronger while the Soviets are weaker.
But you can't make one narcisst bend the knee to another narcisst. Well, of course you can't. If they weren't narcissts, they wouldn't be able to do this job at all. Normal person would end up broken when every mistake and every success results in people getting killed.
It is what it is.
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I came back to comment again, after I've listened to Sławomir Menzen, who is a Polish politician from Konfederacja:Wolność party, which is the absolute extreme right, the most pro free market party in Parliaments of Europe right now. Nobody comes even close. Law and Justice party, which is considered to be far right in the West, is center-left in comparison to them.
So, he's a wise guy and he offered several insights, which I consider to be worth propagating further.
1. The country can't be ruled by economists, because economy is incapable of establishing truth. The lead economists disagree with each other on absolutely fundamental issues. In other words, they don't know squat.
2. He compared Classical Economy to Classical Physics. Newtonian physics worked perfectly well on usual scales, but when the velocities became very high, the masses very big, the distances very small and so on, it failed us. He suspects (he's still working it out), that it's quite possible that Classical Economy will fail us when the scale of events becomes extreme.
The example he considered here was immigration. It's obvious that small scale immigration has positive impact on the economy, but just because that happens, we should not assume that large scale immigration will be even better. One does not guarantee the other.
3. Free market has limitations. The two obvious examples, which we know to be true, because we have observations of it happening, are armament and food production. Investing in armament is extremely wasteful. During peace, nobody needs weapons, and especially nobody needs factories which are capable of producing huge amounts of them, but once the war starts, you can't simply buy arms outside. You either produce those weapons internally, or you are badly armed.
The same goes for food. It may not be economical to keep producing food locally, but once the cannonballs starts flying, it's too late and you face starvation.
4. There is no way of making money on Science. The only difference between us and Dark Age Europe is what we know. Scientists did not earn a dime on what they discovered. Inventors often do not, scientists have no chance. Yet, the whole world benefited from their discoveries immensely . Nothing ever has changed the world as much as Science. Maybe agriculture, but I doubt it.
Why did I bother writing all of that? Because I got the impression, that from Socialist you switched into an Anarcho-Capitalist, which means that you totally flipped to the other side. Menzen is an extreme far right, yet he recognizes the limitations of the philosophy he considers to describe the world the most accurately. Philosophy! Economy is not a hard science. Only empirical sciences are hard, the rest is just running your mouth a lot.
So I simply hope you will keep on thinking and keep on developing your understanding further. Don't just flip from one side to the other. You are way too wise for that.
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@ExternalThreat There are exceptions like awards, but otherwise science is a non-profit activity. Galileo, Copernicus, Gauss, Ampere, Volta, Darwin, Newton, etc, the list is endless. None of those guys was able to market and sell their ideas.
Since there is no profit associated even with the most beneficial and useful scientific discoveries, capitalism is incapable of funding science. Science initially was funded by scientists themselves, and that's why they were always wealthy to begin with. It was a hobby of the rich. Later we figured out that's it's so useful, that it actually makes sense for the society to fund it.
Transistor which made it possible for You to read my post, was funded by the state. Internet was funded by the state. It's quite likely you used an ARM processor to send your post. The earliest projects were funded by the state. So on, and so forth. Open up and examine your smartphone. I bet you'll find a state funded project at the root of most, if not all, of important technologies which make it useful.
Capitalism is an evolutionary system. You have a nerve which starts in your head, goes around your heart and goes back to your head. Why such nonsense? Because evolution is incapable of insight, so a complete redesign is simply impossible. Humans are capable of insight, though. That's why we sometimes decide to do what makes "no financial sense", because we are able to foresee that it might lead to large scale benefits in the future.
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You are British, so you must be aware of how many various, and extremely differing, nations this conglomerate was originally composed of. It was the same for every nation ever . They start as a "multiethic" conglomerates, then they agree on a set of values and become a nation.
Hence, every "mono-ethnic" state is a result of a successful multi-ethnic experiment. Like Britain, France, Germany, China, India, Italy, Poland, Russia, USA, Greece, and even Spain.
Hence, if you try to oppose the one with the other, it's like trying to oppose small business with big business. If you are good at what you are doing, you gonna grow. It's like trying to oppose children and their parents. Yes, they differ, but without a parent, there would be no children.
What I mean by that? People are conformist not because they are "incapable of thinking". This strategy, of becoming a part of a team, and working toward a common goal, was proved extremely successful over and over again.
Actually, it's what differentiates us from apes. They can do it too, but they aren't even closely as good as we are at this game.
Maybe those "unwashed" and "unthinking" crowds do something right, after all?
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@pavlovsdog2551 " Red Army was NOT destroyed "
4.5 mln casualties, more than 2 mln prisoners. The Red Army was not just destroyed, it was destroyed twice over.
" if the Germans HAD invaded in May, despite the weather, and allowed the front to stagnate along the border for a few weeks "
The answer is very easy. The Germans wouldn't have been able to inflict those staggering losses.
" allowing the Soviets to fully commit their reserves "
The Soviets wouldn't have done that, simply because they weren't able to supply more soldiers on the front. Actually, they might have pulled some of their units back, and deploy the defense in depth, simply because a stationary unit is not using as much resources, while a fighting unit needs a lot of those.
At the same time they'd surely train their reservists. No advantage for the Germans.
" BEFORE unleashing the blitzkrieg beast in June "
So they'd train the Red Army in combat for a month, before trying to totally humiliate it? They'd let them build fortifications, fire incompetent commanders, quite likely get rid of the "double command" of the political officers, so forth?
I mean, they'd likely win the early battles even against a better prepared Red Army, but their victories would be much smaller in scope and they'd likely never be able to even reach Moscow.
Their strategy was correct. Hit them hard and hope they'll collapse soon after.
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