Armistice Day

[Brian37]

I was just watching a documentary on D-Day, holy mother fucker, the German machine guns in the pill boxes on the top of the bluffs.  An AR-15 looks at them and says, "I need to speed up a bit." How the fuck anyone survived that.

And the amphibious armored tanks they sent ashore, if you were the guy inside, you were pretty much fucked because the majority of tanks didn't make it. Pre-testing in calm waters they worked, but the waves that day were high and breached the canvas meant to keep them afloat. They were meant to act as cover for the soldiers but many sank before they could get ashore.

And yes I know Armistice Day was WW1 and D-Day was WW2. But still, how anybody survived either with out some severe PTSD.

Here's really good Youtube series on WW1. It just did it last episode today after 4 years . It does the war week by week as it would have been 100 years ago. It does a lot of other stuff two like evolution of tactics and technology and biographies of people  and nations as well as visiting museums and historic sites . 




The first episode explaining how the war happened 





Rommel became famous in WW2 but his story starts in WW1





The evolution of airplane

There is no way anyone could value Rommel in the 2nd World War considering the monster he supported. But it does explain in part the rise of Nationalism in pre WW2 Germany. He was a master strategist in WW1.

I will say this about Hitler, he basically bit off more than he could chew. He had a horrible strategy that if he just expanded, the conquered lands he could use those resources to continue expanding. Problem just like any system, if you don't take into account the amount of energy going into the system to produce the desired outcome, the gains will be short lived. Lucky for humanity, he made that huge blunder.