The Effect of British Commonwealth Troops in WWII

@DiegoMaxwell

Congratulations to Mr. Prewitt. It should be noted, however, that France’s highest order of merit is called the Legion of Honour (Légion d’honneur), not the Legion of Armour, and also that France doesn’t actually have knighthoods in the same sense as Britain does. “Chevalier” (knight) is indeed one of the Legion of Honour’s five levels, and the name is a holdover from the days when France still had an aristocracy, but the French nobility system went out the window with the French Revolution. I once saw a series of amusing cartoons depicting what life in France would be like today if the Bourbon monarchy hadn’t fallen, and one of them showed an irate air traveler standing at the ticket counter of “Royal Air France” and telling the ticket agent “But I’m a baron and I have a confirmed reservation!” The agent replies, “I’m sorry, sir, but the Duke of So-and-so has precedence over you, so we gave him your seat.” In fairness, the same sort of thing actually happens in real-life republican France. A few years ago, there was scandal involving one of the major D-Day anniversaries (I think it was the 50th one), when the French government contacted various hotels in Normany and appropriated some of their existing reservations so that various French officials could have rooms for the event. Some of those rooms, however, had been reserved by foreign veterans of the D-Day invasion. When the story broke on the front page of French newspapers (under such headlines as “Our Liberators Insulted!”), public opinion was outraged and the French government beat a hasty retreat. The prevailing editorial opinion over this affair was: Do this to our own citizens if you want, but don’t do this to the heroes who ended the occupation of France.

Here’s a great project that a filmmaker has been working on. And I think it’s especially nice that he’s a young man, not someone from a generation closer to WWII.

Thursday, February 28, 2019 6:38AM EST

A young American filmmaker is on a mission to interview every last Second World War veteran to share the stories of as many combat veterans as possible – before it is too late.

Rishi Sharma has spent the past three years documenting the lives of living Second World War veterans in the U.S., U.K. and Canada for his non-profit organization Heroes of the Second World War.

The average age of Second World War vet is now 93 years old, and the number of survivors is slowly diminishing with the passing of time.

After three years of visiting seniors’ homes to record veterans’ stories, Sharma says has filmed more than a thousand interviews.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/american-filmmaker-on-a-mission-to-interview-every-last-second-world-war-veteran-1.4316271

Your second sentence was, “Sorry the info isn’t going your way– but that’s called truth overcoming lies.” Prior to you writing that comment, your contributions to this thread consisted almost exclusively of inane jokes about Goering, or deliberately deceptive comments about Germany’s food situation. The one statement you made which doesn’t fall into those categories was your comment that “you left out Quisling.” None of your contributions to this thread represent “truth overcoming lies,” which means your second sentence was just as dishonest as your first.

Kurt they let you out of the Wannsee conference early? oh dear.

too many you/your… cant read it.

@WraithZer0:

Wow, man.  You really did want the Nazis to win.  You wanted us to help them conquer Stalin, and, in turn, probably cede to letting them take over most of Europe.  Until this long-storied analogy, I believed you were just defending a well-read argument for the hindsight of the goings on of WWII.  I was really intrigued by taking a neutral look in to things, but I knowingly can’t ever choose any side other than my own country in this venture.  I am sure you say patriotism be damned, but out of your “3 evils” of the western allies, Russia, and Nazi Germany, I will always choose the allies.  Sorry, Kurt.   :-(

I appreciate the sincerity and candor of your post. I also respect your patriotism.

When a soldier turns traitor, you shoot the soldier. When a general turns traitor, you hang the general if you possibly can. But what happens when a nation’s leader betrays the nation he’s charged with ruling? What happens when, as a result of that cynical treason, he leads his own nation down the road to its own destruction?

When FDR died, Truman inherited his administration. A number of the members of that administration owed their loyalty to Joseph Stalin and to communism–not to the United States. According to Herbert Hoover’s book Freedom Betrayed, members of Truman’s state department talked about their desire for South Korea to fall to the communists. But they wanted to avoid the appearance of having pushed it over.

In 1946 the U.S. government embargoed weapons deliveries to the Chinese nationalists, because members of Truman’s administration thought those weapons shouldn’t be used in a civil war against the communists. Also, the nationalists were pressured to cede more and more to the communists–to meet them halfway. But the United States government never pressured the communists to be more reasonable to the nationalists. After WWII ended, Stalin had plenty of American Lend Lease weapons lying around. He gave a large portion of those weapons to the Chinese communists. The communists also received Japanese weapons caches which the Red Army captured during its invasion of Manchuria. Chinese communists had access to more and better weapons than did the nationalists–which proved an important factor in the ultimate communist victory in China.

That same cynical, deliberate treason against the United States was also seen toward the end of WWII. Harry Dexter White was a known Soviet agent within the FDR administration. (One of many.) He was also the original author of the Morgenthau Plan. The central objective of the Moregenthau Plan was to create hunger (and outright starvation) in the democratic portion of postwar Germany. Partly, that was intended as revenge against Germany for having gone to war against the Soviet Union. But the main (communist) reason for formulating the Morgenthau Plan was so that West Germany would go communist.

It took two years (1945 to 1947) of death and disease, and fears that starving Germans might “go Communist” before U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes made his Stuttgart speech.

Given the Soviets’ stated long-term goal of world conquest, starving West Germany into the acceptance of communism represented deliberate treason in the face of an avowed (and very powerful) enemy. The Morgenthau Plan was formulated under the FDR administration, and FDR himself was a strong supporter of the plan. It was implemented under the Truman administration, in the form of JCS 1067. Not only was JCS a crime against humanity, the apparent motive for that crime was the advancement of a treasonous objective.

At what point did the “contain Germany, appease the USSR” crowd knowingly commit treason? When did they first decide to cynically betray the nations they were tasked to lead? For the most part, I do not think that the “contain Germany, appease the USSR” politicians of the Versailles Treaty era were guilty of treason. Many or most of those politicians were fairly despicable human beings, granted. But they were not (so far as I can tell) traitors.

At least in the United States, the transition from non-treason to treason probably occurred in the election of 1932. FDR (deliberately?) allowed his administration to become a rats’ nest of Soviet agents, fellow travelers, and sympathizers. Whenever there was an internal disagreement within FDR’s administration, FDR typically sided with the Soviet agents. The Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin were therefore able to exert considerable control over the FDR administration, especially when the most important decisions were being made.

Stalin wanted a one front war, in Europe. It was therefore important that Japan be distracted. Fairly early in the Chinese civil war, Mao captured Chiang Kai-shek. Mao’s instinct was to shoot him. But before doing so, he radioed Moscow for instructions. The instructions came back: “Do not shoot him. Force him to fight the Japanese.”

But the war between the Chinese nationalists and the Japanese was not alone enough to distract the latter from a possible attack on the Soviet Union. Stalin used his (considerable) influence in the United States, and his influence in Japan, to encourage war between the United States and Japan. The United States government embraced eight separate provocations against Japan; the most serious of which was the oil embargo. (Some of the provocations included moving the U.S. Pacific Fleet from California to Hawaii, basing American strategic bombers in the Philippines, and deliberate violations of Japanese territorial waters by American destroyers and cruisers.) These provocations ultimately resulted in the Pearl Harbor attack. Once the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Stalin knew that the Japanese could no longer afford to launch a serious invasion of the U.S.S.R. He transferred 100 divisions from his eastern front to his western front. Given that the Germans had used only 100 divisions in their initial invasion of the Soviet Union, the appearance of 100 additional Soviet divisions proved devastating.

After the end of WWII in Europe, General Patton began speaking out against the Soviet-influenced war crimes then being committed by the American government. He strongly disagreed with the decision to ship many or most American-held German POWs to France or the Soviet Union. He pointed out that in French or Soviet custody, many of these men would die of starvation.

Patton died a few months after having first pointed out the Truman administration’s war crimes. Evidence strongly indicates, but does not prove, that he was assassinated. Patton was the patriot, the men who ordered his assassination were traitors. Traitors who deserved to be hanged not just for the war crimes they had committed, but for having betrayed the nation they’d sworn to protect.

The Soviet Union was stronger than Nazi Germany in terms of population size, industrial capacity, and access to raw materials. Perhaps even more importantly, it was also much stronger than Nazi Germany in terms of its ability to influence the behavior of Western democratic governments.

When a man contracts rabies, the rabies virus overrides some of his brain’s programming. Specifically, the virus causes the man to want to bite the people and animals around him. Biting allows the virus to spread. Eventually the rabies virus will kill the man’s brain; and therefore the man. But unless the man has been physically restrained, odds are that before he dies he will have bitten a significant number of victims. His infected saliva will seep into his victims’ wounds.

The governments of Western democracies had been infected with the communist virus. Due to that infection, they experienced a strong desire to “bite” any nation which stood up to communism. That desire to bite was motivated not by patriotism, but by a treasonous illness.

@ABWorsham:

Had the Channel been abandoned, I would then focus on mining the trade routes around Scotland. Then step up bombing the western port cities.

Would be nice to have a four engine bomber fleet.  :cry:

How would you mine the routes around Scotland? They could just keep going around them…

Thanks Marc. Exactly right. Wi try and paste and post in the right place, although I suspect Worsham will see it here.
Was at work when I posted and my head was in the wrong place, obviously.

@Epiphany:

That all sounds blood awesome!  You clearly spent a lot of time working out the details and they sound really cool.

At the end of your post you were mentioning that British ships can get higher anti-aircraft tech than Soviet or Axis ships.  Does each nation have specific tech limits for all technologies available?  And are there land-based anti-aircraft technologies? If so, how does Germany stack up?  You mentioned in previous posts about the “big deal” that aircraft represent in the game, so having or not having technology related to shooting stuff down seems important.

How do aircraft carriers work?  Do they come with their own assigned aircraft, or can you field upgraded naval air units?  Or would that merely upgrade the aircraft carrier itself?  So many games, the aircraft carrier, and all ships in general, are just simple units with simple stats.  Are there light carriers, escort carriers and fleet carriers with varying stats for each country?  Can any country build them?  Could Germany for instance, field a massive carrier fleet?

You said China produces no EU’s for the first 5 turns.  Does this mean China only has what it starts the game with for five turns?  Or does it still have PU’s to build units with?  Also, do you have to spend everything every round or can you accumulate EU’s or PU’s and spend them when you want to?

I’m glad you like what you’ve heard! :)

In answer to your question, there’s a general tech tree, and there are nation-specific techs. Each nation has a list of the techs from the general tech tree it’s allowed to research. For example, Germany can research higher up the infantry part of the tech tree than anyone else; Britain and the U.S. can research higher up the artillery part of the tech tree, and so on.

In answer to your question about China: its lack of EUs means it cannot research or industrialize early in the game. But it starts with an income of 12 PUs and 10 MPs. Its light infantry cost 1 MP each, so it can buy 10 light infantry a turn, plus 12 PUs a turn of artillery or fighters. In answer to your other question: you don’t have to spend everything every round. Unspent resources get carried over to the next round.

The primary way to defend against enemy aircraft is with fighter aircraft of your own. Fighters are specialized for one role, and one role only: shooting down enemy planes. Their anti-naval and anti-ground combat values are very limited. If you were engaged in a carrier war, for example, some of the planes on your carriers would probably be fighters (to shoot down enemy aircraft), and some would be torpedo bombers (decent at shooting down enemy aircraft, great at sinking enemy ships). You’d use your fighters to destroy enemy torpedo bombers before they could take out your ships! Or you could use your fighters against the enemy’s fighters, in an effort to protect your own torpedo bomber force.

You build aircraft separately from aircraft carriers. You can land up to two planes on a normal aircraft carrier, and up to four planes on a fleet carrier. Upgrading your carrier fleet from regular carriers to fleet carriers is relatively straightforward from a technological perspective. However, fleet carriers cost 28 PUs, compared to just 18 for regular carriers. Fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo bombers can land on regular carriers. Fleet carriers can handle these planes as well. In addition, jet fighters and jet fighter-bombers can land on fleet carriers. Strategic bombers and jet flying wings cannot land on any kind of carrier.

The rules set does not currently contain AA guns as separate playing pieces; though I’m half tempted to add them in. Currently, advances in artillery technology improve the land combat value of your artillery, and give your artillery anti-air combat value as well. If I were to include AA guns, they would be like regular artillery, except with a weaker anti-land combat value, and a better AA value. Unlike Britain and the U.S., Germany cannot research advanced proximity fuse. This means its artillery will not have the same anti-ground or anti-air values that American and British artillery have. But even though Germany’s artillery ceiling is third-best, that ceiling is still good and high.

Speaking of Germany, below is more of the list I’d promised.

Germany

Blood and Iron. German infantry have three hitpoints. (As opposed to two hitpoints for most other nations’ infantry.)

Blitzkrieg. If Germany is engaged in a land battle, and if its opponent decides to withdraw its land force from that land battle, Germany gets to multiply the land combat value of its tanks and planes by a factor of two when firing on that land force.

Crush communism. During the collect income phase of each turn, Germany receives a free manpower point for each formerly Soviet territory it controls. (Limit 4 MPs per turn.)

Fortress Europe. Blockhouses have 4 hitpoints, receive +1 to their land combat value, and cost 3 PUs each.

Bismarck. Your battleships receive +7 to hitpoints and +2 to their naval combat value.

Heavy artillery. Your artillery receive +1 to their land combat value.

Speer’s industrialization. During the industrialize phase, Germany may upgrade seven of its cities for free. In addition, Germany receives one free advancement in Industrial Technology each turn. Speer’s industrialization ceases to provide additional benefits to Germany after the first five turns of the game.

Goettingen laboratory. Germany has a research center in Hanover. This research center provides 10 EUs a turn, has 40 hitpoints, and may not be targeted unless Hanover has been destroyed.

Custom technology available for research

Panther tank (may not be researched before round 2). Researching this tech causes the following to happen. 1) You automatically receive the techs battle tanks level 1 - level 5, even if you do not have the prerequisites for that tech. 2) your battle tanks receive +1 to hitpoints. 3) Each additional battle tank tech costs one less EU to research. Cost: 7 EUs.

King tiger. (You must have previously researched battle tanks level 7.) Researching this technology causes you to receive the techs heavy tanks level 1 - level 3, even if you do not have the prerequisites. Cost: 4 EUs.

E-series tanks (may not be researched before round 8.) Medium tanks (E-25s) now cost 4 PUs, battle tanks (E-50s) cost 7 PUs to build, and heavy tanks (E-75s) cost 11 PUs to build. Heavy tanks receive +2 to hitpoints and +1 to land combat value. Cost: 7 EUs.

Me 262. (May not be researched before round 3.) Researching this technology causes you to receive jet engines levels 1 - 4, jet fighters levels 1 - 7, and jet fighter-bombers levels 1 - 2, even if you lack the prerequisites for these technologies. Cost: 9 EUs.

Underground factories: it takes 50 hits to reduce one of your cities by one size. Cost: 3 EUs.

Improved optics (may not be researched before round 7.) Adds +0.5 to the land combat value of German infantry, +1 to the land combat value of German artillery and medium tanks, +2 to the land combat value of German battle tanks, and +4 to the land combat value of German heavy tanks. Cost: 5 EUs.

Infrared illumination and targeting. (May not be researched before round 8.) Adds +0.5 to the land combat value of German infantry, +1 to the land combat value of German artillery and medium tanks, +2 to the land combat value of German battle tanks, and +4 to the land combat value of German heavy tanks. Cost: 7 EUs.

The recent Lybian Civil War has been one of the more interresting post WWII conflicts.