Infantry Discussion Thread 10: Shovel Edition [NO FWORDS]

[Gallia-]

Meanwhile the Kurds and New Iraqi Army are failing against a couple of Toyotas and some random ex-Ba'athist functionaries.

On this logic, literally the entire world is failing.

And you aren't wrong.

Yeah, that's kind of what happens when you try to fight an unstoppable industrial juggernaut that lives an ocean away, impervious to attack or invasion. You lose.

What a wonderful decisionmaking process.

The entire reputation of "excellence" you're speaking of stems from Hitler's conquest of Europe and modern Germany's industrial policies.

And Sedan, Sadowa, and so on and so forth...

1) It would have been correct for ~100 years prior.

2) Germany had one decent war (1870) and one big fail (1914) under its belt at the time. Everything else was basically a sideshow. France was seen as the obviously superior military because France had a much better history than Germany at the time. Look how that turned out I guess.

[Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502]

How similar was Prussia to the Second Reich? Imperial Germany only had three big wars and lost two of them, but the German-speaking peoples certainly had a long history of warfare.

[Austrasien]

Except the argument was not about his ostensible military skill [and even that is at best controversial], but about the competence of the German government under Hitler.

If someone told Bismarck one day Germany would obtain all the German lands of the Hapsburgs without firing a shot with the consent of the powers of Europe just by insisting very firmly they should be part of Germany, he'd probably have a stroke. For the Nazi's this was just the warm up.

It was not a competent government because it did not succeed at achieving its own goals, and indeed consistently achieved the reverse of its own goals, in ways that were entirely predictable at the time.

It succeeded at the vast majority of it's goals. Your argument is retrocasual; because Germany lost the war the Anschluss and partition of Czechoslovakia were not huge diplomatic coups. Because Germany lost the war the Fall of France and the simultaneous destruction of the British and French Army in just over a month was not an incredible military achievement. Because Germany lost the war negotiating the Molotov Ribbentrop pact to temporarily neutralize the USSR as an enemy and prevent Germany from facing the same dilemma in 1939 as in 1914, while also securing the assistance of the USSR is crushing Poland, was not a strategic coup for Germany.

Time you may have forgotten only works in one direction. If you had tried to make this argument in 1941 you'd be grasping at straws. Nazi Germany lost, and it lost big time, but it had many truly extraordinary accomplishments on the way there. It was so hard to beat them for a reason.

Furthermore, it was also not a competent government because it lacked the main feature of a competent government, which is formal decision making processes rather than 'a vague ill-defined clique of drug addicts vaguely connected to the Fuhrer'.

Bureaucracy is not really the definition of a good government.

[Austrasien]

tl;dr conquering Europe isn't an achievement when you can't hold it afterwards, and in doing so galvanize the three most powerful nations on earth to fight either to the bitter end, or your complete and utter destruction.

How many regimes have achieved this, ever, for any length of time?

The fact that Hitler conquered Europe says more about Europe than it does about Hitler.

So we have two options here:

1. Hitler and Nazis were actually pretty good at the whole conquering thing but ultimately got high on their own success, bit off more than they could chew and lost it all in the end.
2. Everyone else in Europe was affected by a mysterious brain fog that prevented them from stopping those Nazi nicompoops from bumbling their way to controlling virtually of the European continent, but which lifted miraculously and spontaneously right around 1942, just in time to stop those wacky Nazis from bumbling their way right across the world.

And the second option seems more plausible to you?

[Allanea]

Bureaucracy is not really the definition of a good government.

Formal decision making processes actually kind of are.

[Allanea]

So we have two options here:

1. Hitler and Nazis were actually pretty good at the whole conquering thing but ultimately got high on their own success, bit off more than they could chew and lost it all in the end.
2. Everyone else in Europe was affected by a mysterious brain fog that prevented them from stopping those Nazi nicompoops from bumbling their way to controlling virtually of the European continent, but which lifted miraculously and spontaneously right around 1942, just in time to stop those wacky Nazis from bumbling their way right across the world.

And the second option seems more plausible to you?

Nevermind both of these are factually untrue, #2 definitely applies, at least, to the USSR.

[Spirit of Hope]

The fact that Hitler conquered Europe says more about Europe than it does about Hitler.

So we have two options here:

1. Hitler and Nazis were actually pretty good at the whole conquering thing but ultimately got high on their own success, bit off more than they could chew and lost it all in the end.

They bit off more than they could chew almost right away. I mean, they successfully conquered a bunch of small nations that offered almost no resistance, and then went after Poland. It isn't like they did a stunning job in Poland, and were certainly helped by the USSR coming in the back. But because they invaded Poland they were now fighting France and England, at which point they were basically domed. Germany managed to take out France more because of political issues between France and England.

2. Everyone else in Europe was affected by a mysterious brain fog that prevented them from stopping those Nazi nicompoops from bumbling their way to controlling virtually of the European continent, but which lifted miraculously and spontaneously right around 1942, just in time to stop those wacky Nazis from bumbling their way right across the world.

And the second option seems more plausible to you?

How about Germany only really managed to remove one major player in Europe, France, because of luck and politics? England stood strong, the USSR got beaten up but drove in for the kill.

[Gallia-]

So we have two options here:

1. Hitler and Nazis were actually pretty good at the whole conquering thing but ultimately got high on their own success, bit off more than they could chew and lost it all in the end.
2. Everyone else in Europe was affected by a mysterious brain fog that prevented them from stopping those Nazi nicompoops from bumbling their way to controlling virtually of the European continent, but which lifted miraculously and spontaneously right around 1942, just in time to stop those wacky Nazis from bumbling their way right across the world.

And the second option seems more plausible to you?

Nevermind both of these are factually untrue, #2 definitely applies, at least, to the USSR.

Popper_was_right.tiff

[Allanea]

Taking either of these premises, they are both factually untrue in terms of describing the events of WW2, but he second is in part true when discussing some participants.

On a different topic yes.

Popper was right.
Strauss was right.
Friedman was right.
Mises was right.

Deal with it.

[Gallia-]

Does this mean the USA is a huge idiot led moronocracy because it lost the world?

The most accurate statement is that Hitler's Reich started out competent and gradually became less competent as it was clouded by early successes in its decision making, culminating in eventual defeat around 1942 when the USA entered the war. That doesn't detract from its early success in the slightest, that just points out the folly of having so much information weighed on a small circle of individuals. Had Hitler stopped at the Sudetenland, the Third Reich would probably still exist in some form today.

You might as well try to say that American economic hegemony was ruined by the Nixon Shock or Reaganomics, which were both events that weakened and ultimately destroyed it.

[Puzikas]

Idk if any of you are into weightlifting or body building like I am

But the guy who just won the Arnold classic (which is a body building competition) is a army SSGT

Here he is in uniform:


And here is the greatest comment of the year:

[Fordorsia]

Idk if any of you are into weightlifting or body building like I am

Are you kidding? I'm jacked

[Dostanuot Loj]

Idk if any of you are into weightlifting or body building like I am

But the guy who just won the Arnold classic (which is a body building competition) is a army SSGT

He's the guy in the middle holding the flag, right?

LOL jkjk

[Allanea]

Does this mean the USA is a huge idiot led moronocracy because it lost the world?

The most accurate statement is that Hitler's Reich started out competent and gradually became less competent as it was clouded by early successes in its decision making, culminating in eventual defeat around 1942 when the USA entered the war. That doesn't detract from its early success in the slightest, that just points out the folly of having so much information weighed on a small circle of individuals. Had Hitler stopped at the Sudetenland, the Third Reich would probably still exist in some form today.

The problem with this idea is that having so much information weighed on a small circle of individuals is at the core of what the Third Reich believed in, and equally, vast territorial expansion is at the core of Mein Kampf, even at an age when sheer territorial expansion was becoming less and less important economically.

In reality, Hitler and his cronies came into possession of a country with a strong industrial and military tradition, and a strongly nationalistic culture, as well as a literary and philosophical tradition that could be put into service of a nationalist upheaval. In other words, it was much like a gang of meth-using, cousin-humping racists with bad teeth breaking into a National Guard armory.

Well, literally a gang of meth-using cousin-humping racists. In Hitler's case - literally with bad teeth.

They then used the cultural and social weapons they had found there to fight everyone else, and predictably lost. It should be noted that fighting everyone else was a spectacularly bad idea on the level of performing a pirouette atop a speeding train for Youtube likes.

I can climb on top of a speeding train, and if I am good at ballet, I may perform several, extremely technically well-executed, wonderful pirouettes up there. Possibly the video of me performing a pirouette in a ballerina dress as I get face-slammed by an electric pole at 100 MPH will get 10 million likes and go viral. But that is not competence as most people know it.

[Puzikas]

You'd die

[Spirit of Hope]

You'd die

You know I don't think we needed a medical expert to tell us that getting hit in the face by an electric pole while going 100 miles an hour is fatal.

[Purpelia]

The question to ask is not if he would die. It's if he would die from the impact and fall off or if he would snag a wire and actually make a connection in which case he might catch fire in a spectacular way.

[Puzikas]

You'd die

You know I don't think we needed a medical expert to tell us that getting hit in the face by an electric pole while going 100 miles an hour is fatal.

Wrong as usual

It's if he would die from the impact and fall off or if he would snag a wire and actually make a connection in which case he might catch fire in a spectacular way.

Die from impact
Ignite after death

[Purpelia]

Relevant. http://www.bigclive.com/sparky.htm

[Sevvania]

Die from impact
Ignite after death

Witness me, bloodbags.
*V8 salutes*

[Spirit of Hope]

You know I don't think we needed a medical expert to tell us that getting hit in the face by an electric pole while going 100 miles an hour is fatal.

Wrong as usual

That's hurtful.

[Tule]

Idk if any of you are into weightlifting or body building like I am

But the guy who just won the Arnold classic (which is a body building competition) is a army SSGT

Here he is in uniform:
(Image)

And here is the greatest comment of the year:
(Image)

Nah, I much prefer my BJJ thank you very much!

In all seriousness though, that guys is impressively fucking big.

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

Idk if any of you are into weightlifting or body building like I am

But the guy who just won the Arnold classic (which is a body building competition) is a army SSGT

Here he is in uniform:
(Image)

And here is the greatest comment of the year:
(Image)

I see the DoD has relaxed its drug testing standards.

[New Visayan Islands]

Idk if any of you are into weightlifting or body building like I am

But the guy who just won the Arnold classic (which is a body building competition) is a army SSGT

Here he is in uniform:
(Image)

And here is the greatest comment of the year:
(Image)

Lordy, Lordy! That guy's pumped up!

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

Lordy, Lordy! That guy's pumped up!

He sure is pumped....pumped full of synthol, tren, and dbol. At 6' 300 ibs watching him try to run more than 10 yards would probably be pretty amusing.