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Quoted: I heard that during the war, American girls would fuck for a pair of nylons. After the war, German girls would fuck for a Hershey bar. Turns out, German girls don't even like Hershey bars. That's the lesson of WWII. View Quote Naughty Norfolk catered to those looking for sin before shipping out...The town's iniquity grew with the arrival of each new regiment. Every night, thousands of men swarmed down East Main Street, described as "the largest, most solid block of beer joints in the world." Taxis became rolling brothels, and fleets of "girlie trailers" served the concupiscent. On October 18 (1942), vice officers arrested 115 people in the "largest morals raid in local history." His jail cells bulging, Norfolk's police chief asked the federal government to "give me a concentration camp...a camp large enough to handle two or three thousand women." Some soldiers inflated condoms with natural gas from tent heaters and floated them toward town, with notes attached inviting any girl willing to comfort a departing warrior to infiltrate the security area. |
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1. A committed war with clearly defined goals> Half ass no end goals.
2. A point system should be revisited vs. a predetermined deployment length. 3. Fire inept leadership. Early. 4. If you are going to go home after your first nosebleed. Do not get involved in the first place. |
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Quoted: 1. A committed war with clearly defined goals> Half ass no end goals. 2. A point system should be revisited vs. a predetermined deployment length. 3. Fire inept leadership. Early. 4. If you are going to go home after your first nosebleed. Do not get involved in the first place. View Quote ETA: FFS Have a plan to evac. People falling off an outbound aircraft or being plucked off a roof is a major fail |
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When you have an army available that can destroy any nearby commies, destroy the nearby commies with extreme prejudice.
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Aside from “don’t start giant wars or commit genocide”, the most important practical lesson is don’t bite off more than you can chew, no matter how good you are pound for pound. This is the cautionary tale of Germany and Japan.
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It's better to end a war before it starts.
If thats not an option, it nice to have to have other countries fight the war for the first few years before getting involved. |
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Bombing cities and killing the enemy works better than winning hearts and minds.
CWatson |
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Quoted: I think it's completely incomprehensible to the modern Western mind how ruthless and sadistic the Soviet, Japanese, and German governments got. For me, the key lesson is how important it is for civilians to be very widely armed with rifles as a check against that happening again. View Quote Never leave a commie standing |
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Another to add. They say the first rule of warfare is to never get involved in a land war in Asia. WW2 gives us the second, less well known rule.
Never get into a naval war in the Pacific against the United States. |
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Quoted: Aside from “don’t start giant wars or commit genocide”, the most important practical lesson is don’t bite off more than you can chew, no matter how good you are pound for pound. This is the cautionary tale of Germany and Japan. View Quote Yep. Germany could have won had they stopped after conquering France, and not attacked Britain or Russia. Just hold the territory they conquered (comprising most of what is now the modern EU) and spend the next few years fortifying it against invasion of aerial attack, while negotiating with the British and Russians. |
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Considering we have not won a war since, I would say we didn't learn shit.
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With the sophistication of modern weapons, you cannot ignore development in peacetime and expect to make up for it in wartime. We lacked a heavy tank for the entirety of the war because of this. It also delayed production of the Sherman as we had to learn how to manufacture a turret large enough for the 75mm gun. This is a very relevant lesson today as things have only gotten more complex. It would be very hard if not impossible to replace modern tanks, jets, and ships that we lose in a future war.
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You shouldn't define a worldview around a war that wasn't existential.
The U.S. has been defined by WW2, and the aftermath (for boomacons), which has led to a very shaky world order. It's like everyone forgot what happened prior to then because slavery and saving private ryan The things that held us together were tossed in an acid bath that dissolved the old ties, imo Probably not intentional, if I had to guess, but we're dealing with the consequences of it |
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Quoted: Patton was right View Quote |
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The lesson?
Make your enemy fight your other enemy (i.e., Germany v. USSR, Japan v. China). |
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The most important lesson is that all governments lie to their people and use propaganda all the time, especially the American Government.
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Quoted: LOL, here's a snippet from Rick Atkinson's book, An Army at Dawn, where he describes the chaos after transporting thousands of soldiers and tons of cargo and equipment across the United States to Virginia for deployment to Africa: Naughty Norfolk catered to those looking for sin before shipping out...The town's iniquity grew with the arrival of each new regiment. Every night, thousands of men swarmed down East Main Street, described as "the largest, most solid block of beer joints in the world." Taxis became rolling brothels, and fleets of "girlie trailers" served the concupiscent. On October 18 (1942), vice officers arrested 115 people in the "largest morals raid in local history." His jail cells bulging, Norfolk's police chief asked the federal government to "give me a concentration camp...a camp large enough to handle two or three thousand women." Some soldiers inflated condoms with natural gas from tent heaters and floated them toward town, with notes attached inviting any girl willing to comfort a departing warrior to infiltrate the security area. View Quote That's funny, but WRONG! |
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control of the sky is better than the ground
don't supply a future enemy with arms and materials |
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Quoted: Yep. Germany could have won had they stopped after conquering France, and not attacked Britain or Russia. Just hold the territory they conquered (comprising most of what is now the modern EU) and spend the next few years fortifying it against invasion of aerial attack, while negotiating with the British and Russians. View Quote This is a very naive take because it was not just impossible but entirely against the point of the war. Germany’s goals were always to the East and a war with Stalin was inevitable. |
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Quoted: Interlaced tank wheels are a stupid idea as they clog with mud and freeze in the winter. Should have listed to Christy. View Quote Nobody listened to Christie, except for a few pre-war Soviet light tanks. And yet, good tank designs (see: HVSS and torsion bar suspension types) still existed. ETA: in case it wasn't clear: "not listening to Christy[sic]" was actually a good thing. |
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Quoted: If you are outpacing your enemy in technological advances, delay the start of initiating total war until you have complete dominance over your enemy View Quote The Germans never had the level of technological leadership over the allies that they are credited with. That myth was meant to explain away the poor performance of Allied forces early in the war, which was really due to poor leadership. |
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The intermediate cartridge/light rifle.
The efficacy of the man portable machine gun. Combined arms warfare (aka blitzkrieg). Basically, lessons FROM the Germans. It’s like they were right, all along . . . |
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Finish it and completely control the government until all resistance has faded. Germany and Japan took a good 10-15 years to sort out. We have seen nothing but conflict in places where half measures were placed . Greece, Indo China, Middle East, Iran, Ukraine, Korea.... all have direct relation to WW2 issues being unresolved or poorly managed
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Quoted: Another to add. They say the first rule of warfare is to never get involved in a land war in Asia. WW2 gives us the second, less well known rule. Never get into a naval war in the Pacific against the United States. View Quote I think you might live to see that second war invalidated. You become don’t engage a dominant industrial power in a Pacific naval war. |
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Quoted: Bombing cities and killing the enemy works better than winning hearts and minds. CWatson View Quote Winning hearts and minds is possibly the most misunderstood phrase in warfare. It doesn’t mean being Mr. Nice Guy. It means convincing the people that they are better off supporting you than supporting the insurgents. That largely means demonstrating that you can and will kill the insurgents and, just as important, protect those who side with you against insurgent reprisals. No amount of bombing and killing Pashtuns was going to turn them into westerners suitable for living in a western style republic. The war was lost as soon as setting up such a republic became the goal. |
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Quoted: That's funny, but natural gas is heavier than air. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: LOL, here's a snippet from Rick Atkinson's book, An Army at Dawn, where he describes the chaos after transporting thousands of soldiers and tons of cargo and equipment across the United States to Virginia for deployment to Africa: Naughty Norfolk catered to those looking for sin before shipping out...The town's iniquity grew with the arrival of each new regiment. Every night, thousands of men swarmed down East Main Street, described as "the largest, most solid block of beer joints in the world." Taxis became rolling brothels, and fleets of "girlie trailers" served the concupiscent. On October 18 (1942), vice officers arrested 115 people in the "largest morals raid in local history." His jail cells bulging, Norfolk's police chief asked the federal government to "give me a concentration camp...a camp large enough to handle two or three thousand women." Some soldiers inflated condoms with natural gas from tent heaters and floated them toward town, with notes attached inviting any girl willing to comfort a departing warrior to infiltrate the security area. That's funny, but natural gas is heavier than air. |
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The treaty that ended WW1 was the first step towards WW2. It set up the environment for Hitler to come to power
We learned and helped rebuild Germany and Japan |
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Go in and kill everybody.
It's one thing Europeans use to be very good at. |
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Never trust or ally yourself with commies.
Our government is full of communists and their sympathizers. |
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Don’t get sucked in by totalitarians arguing over who does it better.
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Don't feel like writing a bunch of stuff no one will aknowledge reading.
Now that I know Forever War is a real thing, my opinion has shifted. Eisenhower had no idea how right he was. |
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Quoted: There are no civilians in industrial war, anything and anyone that helps you keep troops in the field is a legitimate and necessary target. That's even more terrible. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: The Axis was defeated by taking the war to the civilians. Terrible but true.......... There are no civilians in industrial war, anything and anyone that helps you keep troops in the field is a legitimate and necessary target. That's even more terrible. funny how fast war gets to be what could be called medieval. |
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