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	Archive through November 19, 2018	25		11/20 05:34am

Jeffrey,

Under no conceivable scenario could Germany have fielded the numbers to match the Allied tanks. Germany had neither the population nor the industrial capacity. It was inevitable that they would be outnumbered in total tanks, especially after the U.S. entered the war. And even if they had Panzer-IIIs and Panzer-IVs in numbers to match the Allies, they couldn't have supplied crews for them - see my previous response to Vincent.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, November 19, 2018 - 01:03 pm: Edit

By the way, the Germans built fewer than 2000 tigers, counting both the "Tiger 1" and the "King Tigers"^*. They built about 8000 Panzer-IVs.


^*"Royal Tiger" if you're British. "Bengal Tiger" if you're German. "Konigstiger" (I'm not sure how to put an umlaut over the o) is the German name for the animal that is known in English as the "Bengal Tiger".

By Mark Hoyle (Usa_Retired) on Monday, November 19, 2018 - 10:45 pm: Edit

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They built about 8000 Panzer-IVs.

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"Manpower" is one of those key things that sometimes gets overlooked by advocates for building large numbers of cheap weapons.

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By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - 12:56 am: Edit

The manpower issue for the U.S. was essentially a "self-inflicted wound." The bean counters who planned the war under-estimated the casualties that would be sustained and basically started shutting down the procurement of personnel while there was still a war to fight. The U.S. still had plenty of untapped manpower available, but it was untrained and undrafted resulting in the pipeline of trained combat arms (excluding artillery) replacements being essentially drained and rear-echelon units with either minimal or no combat training being scavenged to provide at least some manpower to the actual combat elements. Casualties among the untrained replacements so procured were, naturlly even higher.

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - 05:34 am: Edit

http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html

The whole thing on the internets.

And I stand by my idea that is a poke at the Germans. When written, Clarke was fresh from his role in developing radar in WW2 for the allies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke

He was actually a pretty amazing guy.

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/AuthorTotalAlphaList.asp?AuNum=52

And, if a country ever put too much hope in the next wonder weapon, it was the Nazis.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - 08:32 am: Edit

Re: Clarke's short story: I'm reminded for all the world of the B-10 battleship, and how many D7s could have been built with the resources and shipyard space and manpower (OK, klingonpower) dedicated to that beast.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - 10:15 am: Edit

Yeah, hope is a dangerous thing. I read a memoir by a WWII U-boat commander hiding in Norway in late 1944 to 1945 hoping that the new Type XXI would turn the war around.

He realized in retrospect how ridiculous that hope was.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - 10:23 am: Edit

Problem is, every so often you do get a major success that revolutionizes warfare: Like the Manhattan project. So. We keep trying.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - 10:33 am: Edit

Speaking of WWII history, I just saw a Norwegian movie about a commando named Jan Baalsrud. It was... simply amazing. Had it not been true history I would not have believed that human being could have endured what he endured. His simple survival inspired the Norwegian people.

The movie is called "The Twelfth Man". DEFINITELY worth a watch, but you have to pay close attention to it because it's in Norwegian with English subtitles. On Netflix I think.

-T

By Marc Michalik (Kavik_Kang) on Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - 12:56 pm: Edit

I don't know anything about it other than what I know of civilian computers and networking, but I've been worrying for quite some time that our military has come to rely too much on computers, networking, and satellites that could conceivably be taken away during a war against a major nation like Russia or China... or both.

Maybe it's more secure than I imagine, but as far as I am aware there is no such thing as "secure" when it comes to computer networks. It seems to my layman's brain that we'd be better off being like Battlestar Galactica and avoiding networking as something we rely on. It seems like a potential massive weakness.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - 05:44 pm: Edit

It depends on how long it takes opposing forces to make use of whatever is broadcast. If the opposition is 15 minutes behind, then planes will be about 100 miles from the detected position making tracking the network useless. Shorter turn around of information and the force multiplier effects would rebound in favor of the opposition.

I certainly hope that the proposed wireless software updates for the F35 will be turned off. Who needs enemy action when a hastily implemented fix could have a fatal bug?

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, January 05, 2019 - 04:52 pm: Edit

Ok....

Firstly... what happened to the discussion on 'The Man in the High Castle'?

Secondly - finished watching the third series just before Christmas.

Although confusing at times - it is very good.

Hitler's extremes never went away and various senior Germans tried to maintain the Balance of Power (the German Industrialist who pretended to be a Swede and passed A-Bomb info over the to the Japanese for example) - as they felt two similar strength powers would be better for world peace than one superpower and one strong power.

I liked how certain Characters 'still do the right thing' - but apologise for having to do so.

… on how it happened - probably 3 ways

1) They won the Battle of Britain - and so the Western and Southern Fighting was much reduced and so they was able to get a winning draw against the Russians (in TMITHC, the Eastern Front is stabilised between Moscow and the Urals - the Germans don't have the manpower to go further and the Russians don't have the strength to push back)

2) They was more liberal on conquered areas (the Ukraine being a previously mentioned good example - not only would it have massively reduced the Partisan threat, but would have provided more troops). As others have mentioned - France, the Lowlands and Scandinavia produced several SS Divisions - more people might have signed up if Germany was still winning in 1943.

3) Sensibility and Luck - the what ifs - Enigma not being broken/the Me262 being left as a fighter (so 1942/1943 introduction date)/the Axis win in Africa (no Monty and the rush of equipment that was sent to Tunis in 1943 being sent in the summer of 1942 - i.e. higher priority)/sticking to a good plan (the changes of priority in 1941 and 1942 on the Eastern Front - i.e. the decision to upgrade the capture of Moscow in late 1941 etc)/no Pearl Harbour until 1942 etc etc etc - or even just no Churchill and FDR.

But - the story line assumed it happened - and was pretty total (the maps don't infer what happened to the UK and the American Resistance is fairly low in strength - so it is probably safe to assume there is no other world power close to German and Japan in strength?).

The 'Dimension travellers' clearly can bring stuff back (film tapes) - could they bring back a working H-Bomb (the Germans think equipped troops can travel from their Earth to other Earths) - so it is probable?

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Saturday, January 05, 2019 - 10:26 pm: Edit

If I recall correctly, the main point of divergence per Dick's novel was the assassination of FDR prior to the 1940 election. With him died Lend-Lease and other such material support to the UK and USSR... and that was enough to tip things over to the Axis.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Monday, December 02, 2019 - 02:29 am: Edit

So who is watching the 4th Series?

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Friday, December 06, 2019 - 09:15 am: Edit

Well, I can see why the finale got generally 2 **'s in the reviews?

40 hours of TV basically being ended in 5 mins....

From the advertisement, it doesn't look like their will be a 5th Series?

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 09:17 am: Edit

It was disappointing. In typical fashion something popular gets riddled with writers who fill it with today’s political agenda because they don’t have the creative juice to match whatever the author brought to the main portion. Granted the book and series did have some nice differences but to wrap it up like that...

If there is an extension maybe the last episode will be just a bad alternate vision. Sadly doubtful.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 10:25 am: Edit

I was hoping 'Allied Troops' was going to come out of the Portal, as they found out about the Nazis infiltrating and killing specific people on other worlds.

Looks like I'll have to track down the books!