Star Wars Quirks

Enjoyed that, thanks.

@CWO:

I can’t recall the details, but Peter Perla’s book The Art of Wargaming decribes a professional wargaming exercise conducted by the British army a few years (about five or ten, I think) before WWI.  The scenario included a German violation of Belgian neutrality and a British expeditionary force being sent to the Continent.  The exercise apparently revealed that Britain had an inadequate military transportation capacity to deal with such a situation in a satisfactory amount of time.  Perla speculates that the British officer who played the role of Britain in the wargame must subsequently have experienced a disconcerting sense of deja vu in 1914 when he saw a very similar scenario being played out in real life.

The Officer was Henry Wilson, a future Field Marshal and Director of Military Operations. He was capable of looking at a map, and thus saw that clearly the Germans would come through Belgium (though he, like the entire French High Command, assumed it would just be through the Ardennes instead of the whole on flanking attempt that it was).

After the initial Moroccan Crisis and increasing tensions with Germany, Wilson was probably THE key figure in organizing Anglo-French military cooperation. Wilson eventually had plans to move the entire BEF (all six divisions, plus the cav) to France and be fully ready for combat by no latter than M-15 (the Germans expected them on M-12). The organization was essentially flawless, however political dithering and fears of German invasion eventually screwed it all up and we had the 4 divisions plus the cavalry moved over that we all know about.

As to the question: Britain was not going to sit back and let Germany assume hegemony over the continent, just like she hadn’t let France assume hegemony over the continent 100 years earlier. The Liberals would dither, and it could take awhile, but with men such as Churchill in charge of their military, Britain was going to war.

Also, MANY people don’t seem to know, that regardless of the government, the British military and foreign offices took war with Germany as a matter of fact, to the point where they had a treaty with the French (kept secret from the government) that the Royal Navy would assume responsibility over the entire French Atlantic coast in the event of war with Germany, allowing the French to concentrate their fleet in the Med. Lord Grey had the wonderful task of informing Parliament that they were duty bound to guard the French coast from any German excursion. Needless to say the liberals took it well  :-D

@empireman:

Where I live would be the spot where the war will first start, So I would have the choices of being a slave or a part of a resistance group. I would choose to fight the evil commies.

same here…

@ABWorsham:

@strategic:

ive never watched starwars

Never watched Star Wars? Thought Lucas had reached the entire world with his series. Well my wife has never ate a Mc Donalds Big Mac.

That is in no way a black mark against anyone.

I unlocked voting since this subject still has life.

Industrialization was bound to kill slavery.  however there were enough radicals in both parties to make it a major issue in the conventions.  so much so in the Charlestown convention that democrats were willing to lose the election rather than nominate stephan douglas who was THE states rights candidate.

Yes its on my top 5 movie list post!

This was broadcast on Soviet television in the late 70’s and the effort spared no expense for extras because they used actual Soviet soldiers and the budget was basically unlimited. The portrayal all the Germans and Soviets is extremely good. The sets are very realistic and the battles consist of perhaps 10,000 or more soldiers, plus hundreds of tanks ( the germans are mostly tiger 1’s and some decent mockups of elephant and panther).

all the battlefield combat scenes are panoramic which is IMO the only way to film a war movie. You can literally see the 10,000 soldiers.

5 movies were presented

Stalingrad ( 2 parts)
Kursk
Operation Bagration
Assault of Berlin

however no english subtitles of this exist. My girlfriend has to translate for me ( shes from Odessa). You wont find any copies of this with english either. I have tried for many years to do this but to no avail. I own all these movies and they are amoung my favorite of all time.

It will cost you at least 100 bucks for the set of movies, unless you rent them from a russian video store and make copies.

@F_alk:

Clausewitz would be quite astonished.

touche! :wink: