cool war book

torsdag den 30. december 2021 kl. 18.04.25 UTC+1 skrev snipped-for-privacy@highlandsniptechnology.com:

This is good too:

Why the Allies Won Paperback – May 17, 1997 by Richard Overy

Electronics really helped. Radar, sonar, TBS, RDF, proximity fuses, nav aids.

torsdag den 30. december 2021 kl. 18.55.57 UTC+1 skrev snipped-for-privacy@highlandsniptechnology.com:

I don't think Churchill thought that Germany would run out soon enough to save Britain, even if Germany ultimately lost.

Lasse provided a link showing that US oil production was something like 2/3 of world production. I had not thought of that, but it should have been obvious, given steel statistics.

So, both steel and oil. Again, size really matters.

Dimeter reports that US material support was important to the Russian war effort as well.

Yes, for certain. No other then world power was remotely large enough.

It's a very complex question, and it's unlikely that there is any one reason. Many books have been written on the matter. The debate continues, likely forever.

I'd hazard that the French would point out that Anglo-Saxons tend to stick together. It's not a compliment. The Allied-side lineup at Normandy certainly supports that observation.

But the Japanese did their part too.

Joe Gwinn

Yamamoto had spent some time in the USA and realized that Japan couldn't compete with our resources in an extended war. He also remarked on the millions of farm boys who grew up fixing tractors and shooting guns.

torsdag den 30. december 2021 kl. 21.59.15 UTC+1 skrev John Larkin:

I think it was him who, before Pearl harbor, wrote that if the war with the US was not won in something like 6 months he was unsure if it was possible to win

Riiight, and because that had to be an attractive investment to attract such totally amoral mercenary folk, the Brits were paying 10% compound interest for 61 years, with some appropriate payment schedule, so the total was inflated by, like, 7x.

Don't think so.

Plus the US has been subsidizing NATO to the tune of a few percent of the total GDP of all the NATO countries since forever, despite their treaty commitments. To be fair, initially this resulted in the whole bloc being aligned to US interests, but then US interests include a free and prosperous Europe. So shoot us.

You could buy a lot of jeeps with that amount of dough.

IMO NATO is a relic at this point--the folly of the Europeans in gratuitously putting themselves at Russia's mercy with regards to energy supplies makes the rest of the world shake their heads. There's no Soviet Union anymore, and Germany has finally achieved its goal of dominating continental Europe. You can't fix stupid, and it's stupid to try.

(Just think about how much unpleasantness could have been avoided if the Germans had thought of doing that coal-and-steel-union thing back in

From the French? Mon Dieu! I'm totally crestfallen. ;)

The Russians drove from Stalingrad to the Oder in American trucks, not even counting the munitions that got them there.

Most of my family are WW1 buffs, so we've visited the Flanders and Artois battlefields several times, especially near Ieper (Ypres) and Arras, where my grandfather served with the 8th Canadian Infantry (Royal Winnipeg Rifles).

The Belgians have an enduring and profound gratitude to the many men who died defending their freedom in both wars, especially those whose own freedom was not immediately threatened--British, American, Indian, Nepalese, Canadian, South African, and so on. One time when we were there for Armistice Day at the Menin Gate (November 11, 2015) there were delegations from (iirc) Nepal, India, Algeria, South Africa, and Australia.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

afaiu in the end lend-lease provided ~30% of the trucks, ~10% of the planes, ~10% of the tanks and almost 100% of the trains the Russians used during the war so the Russians also build a lot, (with the help of materials, oil and food from the US)

Soviet Union, as far as I got before throwing up. Super convincing, for sure.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

That was sufficiently content-dense that I actually listened to it. Thanks.

as he mentioned some of the numbers are Russian and should taken with a grain of salt but most of the numbers are from a book by a Canadian(?) historian

A 90-odd minute youtube video isn't a super-accessible source for checking references. Some printed publication would be a lot more persuasive.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Seeded with the obligatory anti-US insults, to which the audience smirks on-que.

Inferiority complex for sure.

We have a local equivalent, anti-California insults. Same cause.

Those comments reveal quite a lot about you.

Do try to be content with where you are and who you are. You'll be happier that way.

See sig.

I listened to that over the weekend - there was quite a bit of interesting stuff in it, and a lot of detail that was unknown to me.

It had /one/ joke about things made in Texas. It was clearly and obviously an exaggerated and over-the-top joke to add a bit of lightness to the talk. You'd have to be seriously over-sensitive or completely humourless to view it as an insult.

Indeed they do!

It's telling that Germans and Japanese, who we bombed to rubble, seem to like the USA and our cowboys. But the Brits, who we saved, enjoy mocking us.

"If you save someones life, they will hate you forever."