(Part 3) Top products from r/Warthunder

I won't pretend to support the actions of axis soldiers, just the same as I wouldn't support the actions of soldiers in muddled conflicts like we have going on today, however I respect the courage and stalwart determination of soldiers no matter which country they fight for, or for what political/religious ideology they fight for.


It's with that sense of respect in mind, that I find bringing stories to light, from both sides of any conflict, is beneficial, and why I detest people who dismiss those stories and soldiers because "they were our enemy and they did horrible things".
War is horrible by definition, horrible things are bound to happen, and even worse things are bound to happen when religion is thrown in, as shown with Japan's involvement in WWII, but that doesn't make the stories or the soldiers any less impressive, or detract from the insane amount of courage it would have taken for ANY soldier to fight on those fronts, in those conditions, and with those tools.


In the same way I can absolutely respect and be amazed by the courage shown by the soldiers during the raid of St. Nazaire, I can also be equally amazed and impressed by the courage and fighting spirit (and oftentimes surprising humility) of the German soldiers during their conflicts, such as some of the stories of Hanz Von Luck (very interesting book, I suggest finding a copy), it's for those reasons that I think you should reconsider dismissing an entire army of its right to have its stories told simply because you don't like the thought of them having killed allies in past conflicts.

Robert Stanford Tuck's biography Fly For Your Life is hands down one of the best books I've ever read. His account of the Battle of Britain is exceptionally interesting. Definitely worth a read if you can find a copy.

Had more been referring to Gamelin's debacle, of anything! They reaaally didn't listen to Estienne or de Gaulle after him in the push to create independent armored divisions until it was far too late, right around the first Czechoslovak Crisis (The May Crisis) in '38. It was his words that Guderian had reflected in his formation of the Panzer divisions, as well as Guderian's experience on the opposite side of such a combined forces action during the "Black day of the German army," 3ème Bataille de Picardie, circa 1918 - if I'm remembering correctly! Guderian even credited the French in his memoirs, no less.


It's de Gaulle's espousing of Estienne's teachings so closely that helped urge the creation of LeClerc's 2e Division Blindée (aside from LeClerc's performance with the unit prior to the name, of course!). Prior to this the Tanks were interspersed throughout the units of the standing, defensive forces under overly-cautious Gamelin.


...There's much that can be ranted on regarding the debacle, The Collapse of the Third Republic by Shirer being quite a good book for such musings! He does not hide his bias therein, though his detailing of events is still quite stellar.


My great-uncle served with one of the Forces françaises libres divisions as a radio operator during the invasion of Germany at the end, and my grandfather as a submariner in the Les Forces Navales Françaises Libres - despite having been in port during la bataille de Mers el-Kébir, to be true - so the disposition of French forces has always been a passion hereabouts. Je suis un Franco-Américain, il est bon de savoir que l'histoire des deux côtés!

Much of my base knowledge of historical aviation originates from this book, from the National Air & Space Museum. It's not technical enough for me to really talk about this game's mechanics, but it definitely brings a lot of historical context.

I just read that! The account I read is in the book Lords of the Sky by Dan Hampton, I really recommend it to most people on this subreddit

After looking around for a bit I found this website.

The German public was told that the Jews and other undesirables were being resettled.

This article from the times of Israel about a Nazi-era German diary that is used to judge what an “ordinary” German may know.

I also found something on a Q&A website that cites research done by Peter Longerich that suggests ordinary Germans knew quite a bit about what was going on. I couldn’t find his research anywhere though but I think it might be in this book.

It is fairly safe to assume that the German populace knew quite a lot about the supposed ‘resettlement’ of Jewish people and other ‘undesirable’ peoples but whether or not they knew people were being exterminated en masse might still be up for debate I don’t know.

Edit: I should probably say that I’m not arguing that the Germans knew everything, just trying to show that they at least knew something was up beyond the “resettlement” narrative of the government.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0425252868/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

For those interested.

It's escaping me now, been about a year since I read it, but I believe it's Me 262 Stormbird, or at least the cover looks familiar.

His biography is titled Flight of the Avenger.

I guess you just bombed your target, or retreated if you needed to, and went back to the carrier. You can picked up the book for a couple of bucks used: https://www.amazon.com/Dauntless-Helldivers-Dive-Bomber-Carrier-Battles/dp/0517577941

Star of Africa

Sakai's exploits

Boyington's exploits

Just a few books that say otherwise. But I guess I'll take your word over there's.

Untrue. While that was one of the reasons, it wasn't the only one. Bomb racks on aircraft were field expedient measures taken by ground crews, usually with the aim of helping Imperial Army forces. In some cases, like in Burma, 250kg bombs were used against British tanks and defensive positions. Not just by zeroes, but for nearly anything that flew in the Imperial Japanese Army, and some Navy units.

Many Zeroes were fitted with 250kg bombs for use against US ships, with the intent on coming back without it as well.

Source: Tales by Japanese Soldiers

Why? All the top aces of Germany had the majority of their kills on the Eastern Front, and attribute that to the shortcomings of the Soviet planes and tactics. The best Soviet aces have at best 1/5 of the kills of the top German aces, and this is often attributed to inferior, not superior aircraft. The LaGG was resistant to fire, but would shatter when hit by Minengeschoss and other explosives.

http://www.amazon.com/Operation-Barbarossa-Hitlers-Invasion-Russia/dp/0752460706

>The next moment or so was a terrifying moment for the crew, for those at least who had not been mangled, decapitated or sliced in two by the shell or flying fragments. Even if a tank was only immobilised by a hit, everyone knew that they only had a very short respite before another shell would come ripping through the hull. Peter Elstob’s crew soon learnt an important lesson of tank warfare, that ‘when a tank was hit by an armour-piercing shell those who were still alive and able to move got out fast before the next one hit; the whole thing was as unlike a boxing match as it could be, because in tank battle the first hit was the winning one’. The first or second hit was almost certain to set the tank on fire and it was then that any watching infantry were truly thankful that they had never been assigned to an armoured unit.

http://www.amazon.com/On-Front-Lines-Experience-Soldiers/dp/0471551481?tag=viglink20265-20

Though I concede that it does mention being "immobilized", but then goes on to say any hit from a AP round.
From what I've read/seen after an initial hit the crew almost always immediately bails, but obviously not in every case. Of course in the case of a ricochet the crew probably won't bail, but in terms of WT we're talking about a pen that kills some of the crew, not none damaging ricochet.

http://www.amazon.com/Stuka-Pilot-Hans-Ulrich-Rudel-Schiffer/dp/0887402526

Bloody 56 bucks! Might go tune the Librarian :/

Collectivization and forced industrialisation were part of Stalinist Communism because he viewed the Soviet Union as lacking an industrial base to support a true marxist communist state. They were stepping stones to that end. Nazism gave a head nod to socialism but Hitler in actuality just played lip service to the German people in that respect.

I'm done arguing but I'll leave you a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nazism_and_Stalinism.

You can also take a gander at this book http://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471 if you're interested in a more in depth look at the state practices of both countries in Ukraine, the Balkans, and Poland.

In practice sure both countries were similarly brutal but there's a difference in why they were brutal.

Edit: Also why did you sarcastically write 'attempted' changes? Millions of people starved or were killed during those programs. The border between Ukraine and Poland was literally shut down to prevent people from fleeing. Stalin and the Comintern was wholeheartedly devoted to collectivization and making it succeed to support the next stage of industrialization. This was while they were planning to support a communist revolution in Poland. Also look at after the war how the Soviet Union exported communism to the countries it occupied. You can't ignore that and say they half-assed their attempt to make communism work.

Not really. As a "spaceship", yes, but TIE Defenders aren't very aerodynamic.

In the lore TIEs would be at a massive disadvantage in atmospheric combat. They would rely heavily on their gravity repulsers just to generate lift; if they were lured into a turn fight they would have a terrible turning radius and risk tumbling from the sky, unlike the I-185.

They'd be good boom-and-zoomers, maybe, until they get going fast enough for the panels to be ripped off.

Recommended reading: Star Wars: X-Wing series by Michael A. Stackpole. Seems out of place on the War Thunder sub, but on the other hand this series has a lot of dogfights (albeit mostly in space). Excellent storyline, too.

Highly recommended as an entry into the Star Wars book universe; it's not as stupid or ultra-nerdy as it sounds.

To those who croon about how the German POW's had it made and how life was a paradise for them.

Well, there is history and then there is what really happened.

http://www.amazon.com/Crimes-Mercies-Civilians-Occupation-1944%C2%961950/dp/0889225672/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419322289&sr=1-1&keywords=james+bacque

http://www.amazon.com/OTHER-LOSSES-Shocking-Civilians-Eisenhowers/dp/1559580992/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419322289&sr=1-3&keywords=james+bacque

http://www.amazon.com/After-Reich-Brutal-History-Occupation/dp/0465003389/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419322289&sr=1-5&keywords=james+bacque


http://www.amazon.com/Morgenthau-Plan-Influence-American-Postwar/dp/1892941902/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419322574&sr=1-1&keywords=morgenthau+plan

http://whale.to/b/walsh11.html

It's OK to have not known this before - the victors get to write history, after all.

This is not to excuse the German and other Axis nations atrocities (especially the Ukrainians). On the East Front, wholesale murder of whole towns, never mind villagers, was normal (for example the much celebrated and admired, because it was a great military achievemtn by Manstein, the retaking of Kharkov in 1943, ended in the wholesale execution of the WHOLE TOWN in revenge for resisting).

The savagery of Russians has been told many times (in my family, my grandma flatly stated that "When the Russians came, they first stole everything and then raped everything that moved"... And no, we were Russian allies at that point).

But the Western Allies not only shot POWs in Germany as a matter of course, but starved the whole German population as an act of revenge. The Morgenthau Plan was in full force right after WW2, and only after Mr. Hoover and some Mormons and Red Cross (and others) actually visited Germany and saw what the Allies were doing there was it cut back a bit.

Due to the Cold War, both the Russians and the West tried to woo the Germans - in fact, the first mass feeding of the Berliners was done by the Soviets, to demonstrate how much better they were than the Western Allies who starved the whole population and took hundreds of thousands for slave labor!

With Wings Like Eagles

The Blonde Knight of Germany

Stuka Pilot Be forewarned, the man was an unrepentant Nazi.

Samurai!

Edit: If you want some non-aviation but still military books:

Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour: Armistice Day, 1918 World War I and Its Violent Climax

The Last Battle

Slaughterhouse 5 Fiction

The Things They Carried

To Hell and Back