Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Ask Me Anything - Military History Visualized #MHV #AMA" video.

  1. M4 Sherman I think. That's atleast what I have seen on some war movies.
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  2. The late 1800s was an age when nationalism was taken to the extreme, not just by Germany but by all countries. And Germany was a young country that only came into being very lately (1871), so Germany had to try to from a unifying thing... all the small different German Kingdoms felt like one people rather than as feeling as Bavarians, Prussians, Wurtembergers, Saxons, and Hessians in the first hand. So nationalism was drived into high gear, and the military was a way to achive this. With one military parade after another, all flag waving, all talk abour Germanys long and proud military traditions, and all beautiful patriotic songs and military marches were played non-stop such as Preußens Gloria, Die wacht Am Rhein and Oh Deutschland hoch in ehren. The founding father of Germany - Otto von Bismarck, also tried to unify the German people by bring it togheter against a common enemy. And the Germans was taught to fear the French and Russians in order unifying the country against a common threat, and appealing to the feelings of all Germans to protect their loved fatherland. But the side affect from this fear was that Germany went a little bit paranoid, and they thought they needed to maintain a strong military to protect against all outer threats. And later on would the retarded Kaiser Wilhelm II take power, and he never understood how to play this game of diplomacy and didn't understand politics. He was a clumby arrogant idiot, and he went into collision course with France, Russia and England. He decided to build a huge navy for his country after reading a book that said that the country that dominates the seas would control the world. And his hunger for national prestige also contributed to this, as well as the fear the German military had about having too many socialist urban recruits in the Army, so defence spending was rather put into the navy instead. But that just made Britain feeling threatened by Germany, and created a naval power arms race between Germany and Britain. But the German army was great as well in 1914. And much money had been thrown into the military for prestigious reasons, like in all other countries. And the industrial revolution had also allowed massproduced weapons and uniforms.. so massarmies was also possible for the first time. And the German army had started to use their grey uniforms for all German states in 1912 as another step to unifying the country. And the first world war was a German national trauma, that helped to bring togheter the country. But in other ways it also created division.. many became tired of the German Kaiser and demanded that he should abdicate in order to save his country from further pains in 1918. At first he refused, but soon he was kind of forced to accept it. Many Germans then dreamt back to the days of the monarchy. And other Germans felt like their military was about to win the war - but the civilian protesters let the victorious army down (much like many Americans look upon their war in Vietnam). The Versaille treaty forbade Germany to have a strong military and territory was lost and economic compensation would be paid to Germanys enemies. So it was a hard peace. And then Hitler came some decades later, and fixed the economy took back lost land and gave germans pride and jobs. And the military power was being restored with great public support. And the old tradition of unifying the country by cermonies, parades, patriotic music and culture and creating fear of a foreign enemy was brought up again. Hindenburgs funeral became televised as a great ceremony over a national hero. And likewise was the veterans day and the nazi party rallys made into great military spectacles. To impress foreign allies and frighten the allies from invading Germany. And to create an image to the German people and the world that people supported Hitler whole heartedly, and it created a cult of personality. Even today his propaganda movies are intoxicating. But I guess they give the wrong impression about his regime... changeing your countrys national anthem to contain the word Hitler seems a bit to egotiscial. And likewise the idea of making a party flag into a national flag, and even incorparate it into military standards. And having the soliders swear an oath directly to Hitler. And name a youth organization after himself....... all this after just some years in power. And on propaganda movies, this all seem so natural, but I wonder what the average German felt about all this new things. Sorry for a long post.
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  3. The German solidier wasn't any better. I would say that their training and tactics was the thing that made them superb opponent until the last days of the war in 1945. The German army was well equiped and well organized in 1914. For decades the Germans had planned the Schlieffen Plan in to the tinyiest detail and made time tables for all trains carrying troops and supplies. And even when millions of men and supplies should be supplied on Belgiums tiny roads and bridges they never got any traffic jams, becasue everything had been carefully planned and the Prussian burecracy was the most effiecent of all bureucratic machinerys. Germany had also studied the the Russo-japanease war and the Boer war and well learned the lessons, so German troops had their grey uniforms that blended in with terrain superbly while the french had their red-blue uniforms and suffered enormous losses, before they realized their mistake. The German army also had the largest proportion of engineers, and every solider was equiped with a spade and much digging was included in their military education of their troops. While the french had no digging at all in their military education. The British army had learned their lesson about the value of camouflage and digging in, so they performed better than any of the allied Armies. Even the Russians that should have learned more from their was with Japan. The German army also had other strenghts, which would later on also become valueable in world war II. They developed new weapons and tactics, because Germany had no chance of winning a long war of attrition, so they had to try to come up with new ways of defeating their enemy so they could win fast. They tried planes, uboats, flamethrowers, submachine guns, poison gas, terrorbombings with zeppelins.. you name it. But they also turned all ideas on their heads, and instead of bombarding the same area for a week with a million shells and lead hundred of thousands of men forward by orders from the Highest Commander in chief, the Germans did the opposite. They made a short intensive bombardment to soften up their enemy and then launched a surprise attack with a small group of men that was armed with special weapons, body armour, handgrenades, flamethrowers and submachine guns. And those men could make their own decisions at the frontline instead of constantly awaiting orders from Headquarters. And the best men was picked for this fighting teams called "Stosstruppen" and gived extra training in infiltration tactics. And they proved very succesful in defeating their enemies, the first tank offensive the allied launched managed to win lots of ground from the Germans, so they decided to make a counterattack with their Stosstruppen and they managed to not only to win back all lost ground but also push back the allies beyond the original frontline the battle had started from. This idea of lower commanders taking own iniatives was not entirely new since even the Prussian Army had encouraged their lower commanders to think for themselves and improvise instead of blindly following orders from the top. And this was an important reason why the germans could do so well, when the lack of radio communication made it to take 8 hours on average for an order to reach the frontline from the General Headquarters. And when this order finally came to the frontline, it was often times outdated... the weather had changed, the enemy had escaped while you waited for order to press on, or worse he could have recovered from the iniatal surprise from the attack and brought forward reinforcements and digged in. The German army was simply superior in 1914, and almost managed to defeat all the allies on its own hand, but Americas involvement finally became the straw the crushed the camels neck. In World War 2 Germany would use their stosstruppen tactics (aka auftragstaktik) with great success. Their skilled commanders and their rapid decision making caught their enemies by surprise time and time again. And their superb military training made them formidable opponents even in defence. They were also early fans of the radio, which enabled tank commanders to coordinate their attacks and take out superior Russian tanks. And the radio also enabled them to coordinate support from the airforce to a degree the allies couldn't. And once again they researched superweapons as a way to neutralize the allied superiority in manpower.
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  4. no
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  5. witch ammo type are goodest?
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