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The most Neglected front of WWII

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  • #46
    Originally posted by gabriel View Post
    Ed Harris was the only thing that saved the movie from complete embarrassment.
    Ed Harris and Rachel Weiss! She's great and it's hard to shine through a bad historical melodrama.

    I feel that the movie was a cheap Hollywood money sink designed to cater western perceptions of the Red Army. The protrayal of the Red Army as an inept, bumbling force relying on sheer numbers to overwhelm the Germans is a complete lie in so far as Stalingrad is concerned. How could Chuikov made human wave assaults on the Germans when he was outnumbered two to one? More aggrevatingly the battle was filmed to look as if it was a third world civil war fought by handfuls of troops in an empty city. The sheer ferocity of rifle regiments battling for city blocks and companies for mere rooms is the most important thing about Stalingrad and they missed that.

    I recall the German film Stalingrad was somewhat better in that regard. Still, I haven't seen anything on film to capture that.
    All those who are merciful with the cruel will come to be cruel to the merciful.
    -Talmud Kohelet Rabbah, 7:16.

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    • #47
      German movie “Stalingrad” is way better than EATG. It's a completely different film with a different message and in my opinion the best war movie.

      EATG’s assault on the city square scene is a big exaggeration of what would be a typical battle in Stalingrad.
      Charges like that where rare if at all existent. Typical Stalingrad fighting would involve groups of 4-8 men most or some of whom would be experienced Stalingrad fighters. They would never send a bunch of raw conscripts to be mowed down like that.

      The scene where those retreating are executed is dramatized. The NKVD did that but in rare cases and mostly to Penal Battalion (Russian convicts who decided to join the Red Army and gain freedom in return).

      The movie is fun to watch, but I think they could have made it much better if the love scenes were replaced with more battles.

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      • #48
        Originally posted by Yermak View Post
        Penal Battalion (Russian convicts who decided to join the Red Army and gain freedom in return).
        Convicts is a very loose term here.

        Basically, you do anything against orders, like losing a battle, or an unauthorized retreat, you'll be sent to the Penal Bns.

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        • #49
          If neglected in a way of Education it was defiantly the Shino-Japanese War of World War 2 between the Chinese and the Japanese. How many schools teach the mass atrocities the Japanese have committed over the course of the war? Rapings, executions, mass graves, human experimentation, vivisection, it was basically genocide. All the Japanese keep saying when someone brings up World War 2 was how a nuclear bomb dropped on them, but if you actually knew all the dirty little secrets they have done, you would have thought the nuke was karma brought straight on them.

          For anyone who isin't squeamish, I recommend you look up Unit 731. It makes Nazi Germany's Josef Mengele look like a saint. In fact, when German troops were occupying parts of China for the Japanese, they would refuge the Chinese citizens from Japanese subjection.

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          • #50
            That's exactly what I tell fellow lefties in high school. I appreciate they had read an abstract of Lenin's theory of imperialism and all, but they were forgetting in their critique of FDR's aggressive policy to Japan, that not only that Imperial Japan was flaunting its blatant disregard for the diplomatically expressed American interesting in China, but they were also butchering innocent Chinese by the hundreds of thousands. Campaign total was 2 million.

            I am more interested as to what was the military significance of that front. Keegan and Glantz are rather dismissive of it, but some in our board including OoE does not think so...
            All those who are merciful with the cruel will come to be cruel to the merciful.
            -Talmud Kohelet Rabbah, 7:16.

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            • #51
              Oh, there's no doubt about the contributions and sacrifices of the Chinese, who fought the Japanese for fourteen years instead of four like other countries. They engaged the bulk of the *** army - in excess of a million troops who couldn't be used against India or in the South or Central Pacific. And it cost the lives of perhaps twenty million.

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              • #52
                Too tired, missed one zero after the 2. Big difference...
                All those who are merciful with the cruel will come to be cruel to the merciful.
                -Talmud Kohelet Rabbah, 7:16.

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                • #53
                  Originally posted by clackers View Post
                  Oh, there's no doubt about the contributions and sacrifices of the Chinese, who fought the Japanese for fourteen years instead of four like other countries. They engaged the bulk of the *** army - in excess of a million troops who couldn't be used against India or in the South or Central Pacific. And it cost the lives of perhaps twenty million.
                  There is no doubt about the sacrifices, but given the Japanese problems with logistics, how many of those troops could have been used elsewhere? Once Japan embarked on a global war her failings in surface tonnage, fuel and heavy transport aircraft all but doomed her to the number of troops she did use.

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                  • #54
                    China did not help the US in anyway from winning the Pacific War. However, China did stop Japan from winning her war. China was the Imperial Japanese Empire. Japan could lose all her other holdings but she remained an imperial power if she held onto China. Conversely, once she lost China, then all her other holdings would mean squat all.

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                    • #55
                      roffelskates,

                      In fact, when German troops were occupying parts of China for the Japanese,
                      when did this occur?
                      There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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                      • #56
                        Originally posted by astralis View Post
                        roffelskates,



                        when did this occur?
                        There was a German, John Rabe who saved Chinese during the Nankin massacre by establishing an international safe zone, I think. Apart from that...

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                        • #57
                          Originally posted by Oscar View Post
                          There was a German, John Rabe who saved Chinese during the Nankin massacre by establishing an international safe zone, I think. Apart from that...

                          German officers trained the Chinese divisions that gave the Japanese so much trouble outside Nanking that led to the rape of the city.

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                          • #58
                            Z,

                            I think you're mistaken there. The Germans never trained the Chinese on the divisional level. In fact, I have no evidence above the battery level.
                            Last edited by Officer of Engineers; 14 May 09,, 03:47.

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                            • #59
                              The 88th Division that was destroyed in Shanghai had German advisers. Is that what you are thinking about Z?
                              All those who are merciful with the cruel will come to be cruel to the merciful.
                              -Talmud Kohelet Rabbah, 7:16.

                              Comment


                              • #60
                                Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
                                China did not help the US in anyway from winning the Pacific War. However, China did stop Japan from winning her war. China was the Imperial Japanese Empire. Japan could lose all her other holdings but she remained an imperial power if she held onto China. Conversely, once she lost China, then all her other holdings would mean squat all.
                                Sir,

                                Do you mean that the Japanese failed to control the occupied Chinese territories to the degree that would allow them access to China's resources?
                                All those who are merciful with the cruel will come to be cruel to the merciful.
                                -Talmud Kohelet Rabbah, 7:16.

                                Comment

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