History (and related interesting facts)

I haven't watched it, just said what I'd like.

I deleted the post because I decided it wasn't worth the effort ultimately. 

And you always quote me the second before I delete something. 

Edit: I agree with the bold part though.

I like reading creation myths myself.

This is ultimately my problem when it comes to subscribing to any creation narratives though. Sure a God can create something where there once was nothing. But if there was really nothing, where did the God come from? Did it create itself? You run into a new set of problems.

Chicken and egg school of thought.

There is no answer to this.

This is basically the only point I actually wanted to get to in this post because to be frank I am tired and as you said you'd do a more detailed response anyway.

Yeah, they had a lot of troops and positions in the region, but you seem to ignore that at the very least in the case of Siberia transit through that is reliant on a single key point, the rail system there, which makes their response utterly predictable and even you gave the Japanese credit for being able to exploit the shit out of that sort of situation. Sure I am not saying this is going to be an easy or quick fight, in fact I only argue they'd be there to stop the Russians from transferring forces back to the West. Pushing more of their limited armor and air power to the East is really just more then I am expecting here to begin with personally. That said I disagree with the timetable a little bit because I think F would be abandoned regardless of the assertion otherwise because you had detractors of it because of Coral Sea just months prior, notably Nagumo, there is a reason I actually like this fellow, and while his position didn't get much steam beforehand I think he would be paid a hell of a lot more heed if Mid Way went the other direction, anyway back to the point, I think you could see a successful landfall in Russia at the earliest via September because they are going to have to retask and regroup their navy, and put together the army for the invasion and its supply convoy, and I expect you will have the Brits trying to stop them or at the least harry them part of the journey.

Admittedly this by this point is pure fucking conjecture on my part, I just think that the Japanese could exploit the situation and use it to make a bit of annoyance of themselves. Furthermore I think this would stop a lot of those forces in Siberia from being transferred back which of course leads to an interesting situation where the Russians don't have the numbers in this alternative history to simply overwhelm the opposition like they did in our timeline in late 42 and early 43 as you said. I am not expecting a massive counter offensive to begin out of nowhere mind you, as I said originally this is just so Germany can turn its elite units around and get them back into the fight, not to mention hopefully get some of their fucking armor out of Romania where it is rotting for the retreat back to Germany in two years like in our timeline Of course this is basically just a forgotten army(its a broken one admittedly but its still roughly 300,000 soldiers by this point that are just sitting in Romania) Its factors like these, being the reinforcing of the front and the relief from the full fury of the Soviets that I think will prove the most advantage to the German advance.

It at the very least gives them an operational timetable to reverse the situation because it puts the Union in a precarious position where it can no longer reliably ship in levy troops and armor at whim when required and has to make do with what limited equipment it has.

Also I knew about the trucks, remember how I said that the Ruskies didn't have the mech in mechanized infantry earlier?

I just get a small chuckle out of those poor land lease tanks that no one even remembers where there anymore.

Chicken or the egg does have an answer though. If smart-ass answers are acceptable.

Anyway, I don't want to derail this thread anymore than I already have. If you want to discuss this more shoot me a message.

Something interesting

o.o Hurtgen huh?

My granddaddy, the who actually lived through the war was there, I went on a fairly in depth discussion about it back on TSG.

Mostly it was just stuff I remember from what he told me of it, and information from his journals and what I read about the battle itself. I was slightly drunk however while I wrote it.

-Copied from the post I made on April 1st-2nd 2016 on TSG thread: Storytime with Warder


Part One

Alright let's down to the brass tacks, I haven't really started drinking yet so my command of the keyboard and memory is still good, that will likely change as the evening goes on though.

Anyway our story starts back in the year of 1944 in the closing months of World War Two. The series of battles mentioned here tonight are part of what is known as the West Wall Offensive or Siegfried Line Offensive. See back after the landing at Normandy, you had the Americans, Brits, Canadians, whatever coming in towards Germany right? They actually breach the border but before they can cruise into Berlin, they run into the Siegfried Line, a defensive measure that Hitler had built ages before the war even started. This all goes back to Aachen though, the history buffs among you will know that this historically the first German city to fall, so what do the Americans do? They set up a defensive position to prevent any German reinforcements, smart right? Well here comes my granddaddy's part of this tale Field Marshal Model was coming up from the Rur River with Army Group B, which if I recall correctly was made up of 7th army, 5th Panzer and a few other note worthy divisions, a few days ago the name of Osgiliath was dropped in relation to Winnipeg or Detroit, ironically this is quite apt for the battle of Hurtgen.

This would be the last major German victory of the war.

Model's final victory.

With the Siegfried Line already in place the Germans prepared for the push that would come as soon as the Americans and their allies could land enough forces. My grand father wrote this in his journal, he had a few but ultimately, very little of the war written here, but Hurtgen did warrant attention on September 25th when the Aachen Gap was hit by the American 1st infantry, apparently his division was laying mines and anti tank traps as ordered when they came under assault by a American patrol, looking for the forces that were harassing their units outside of the city. Thus this were his thoughts according to my understanding of his terrible handwriting. "Was shot at today, Americans attacking our position, held them off until we able call in artillery." This is a crucial detail, while the rest of the account dribbles off into inconsequential bullshit like thoughts of family, the shitty food etc, he mentions one of the key advantages of the line. Its mile after mile of inbuilt gunports, artillery trenches and barbed wire, concrete, steel and bulllets awaited anyone who tried to that that series of fortifications.

Basically all they had to do when the superior numbered Americans attacked was? Basically calling in a position to the spotters and watch as artillery bursts dropped from the line, that was it, later on it would become more hectic, the battles more intensive and bloody. But this was the prelude of what would be a battle that ultimately cost tens of thousands of lives on both sides, my Grand Father thankfully not among them. Anyway moving along, these skirmishes became increasingly more and more common until October rolled around the Americans committed fully, before this they had tried a few times to breach the line, get around it and destroy their logistical chains but they failed and and the terrain favored the defenders and it was mined all to hell to boot.

In October my grandfather was part of a detachment sent to hold nearby locations against the Americans as they tried to slog through the countryside and circumvent the defensive, his unit suffered moderate causalities and he seemed deeply disturbed by the fact the Americans kept coming regardless of how many of them were killed. Anyway a few tank battalions are sent up and on October 5th he is sent out to skirmish the Americans, and call in their positions for artillery, they pin down what I think was 9th infantry, but that's speculation on my part as records for both sides of this engagement are absolute shit. Anyway after fragging a few Shermans, and cutting up a few squads of huddling soldiers, they retreat back to their own defenses just as the Americans sent in the next wave, and this would go on for fucking months, they kept trying and trying to breach, but you can't circumvent some defenses, air strikes were implausible due to the dense tree coverage, bad weather and anti aircraft guns, tanks were ill suited for the terrain and the Germans had enough heavy munitions to scrap em anyway.

It would get worse in November when Model actually used his own armor, employing the 5th Panzer division to basically send entire divisions that were already overextended, exhausted and dying from constant machine gunfire, artillery bursts and small arms, with the American lines crumbling and the German's preparing for a major counter offensive, the Americans fell back on what always worked for them, numeric superiority and firepower. That would be the second phase of Operation Queen did I mention that? Oh it was a operation the Americans did to capture the banks of the Rhine and Rur and prevent reinforcement to the German heartland and splinter its defenders.

It was a colossal fuck up in my eye, mainly because of this very battle.

Anyway, I am going to cut off here, I await commentary while I munch on bacon, read these notes and sip my Jim Beam.

Feel no obligation however, I will continue my story time telling in perhaps a hour with or without commentary.

Part Two

Anyway picking up where I left off...now that my stomach issues have been resolved-We were at November and the Allies being pushed back by armor, well suffice to say the Americans were slightly peeved at the mounting losses and the fact that they were meeting much larger and more organized resistance then anything they had encountered since Normandy. Well to continue the story in November, first we need to look back and observe the state of the field as it were, under Model the 7th army at this time roughly at around 70,000 or so folks comprised primary into three infantry divisions, their assorted units and a paratrooper unit that was on loan from...I forget where, but anywho they were facing off against the rather well known Omar Bradley, whom I could dedicate entire threads to if I wanted to, but suffice to say the man was a decent general who commanded a much larger force in Germany then what Model had to counter with but due to the defensive nature of these conflicts, the numerics of the situation are ultimately worthless.

You could hold the Siegfried Line indefinitely with a well supplied force, but Omar knew this going into the conflict, after the severe losses taken trying to either cut around it to make the entire defensive wall pointless or splinter the germans by mounting mass attacks resulted in failure, Bradley had enough, he was going to move on to more critical areas and force the the entire structure to be irrelevant, this would begin the Roer dams offensive, which coincidentally where were also a viable path further into Germany, if they could secure those bridges across the river, they would be too far inland to be counter by the Siegfried line and they'd basically have a straight shot to Berlin with only a handful of other divisions in their way.

This would be where the Hurtgen campaign entered into its deadliest phase, Model knew exactly what Omar wanted, how he was going to do it, and how to negate it entirely, by positioning infantry divisions across the surrounding countryside, he created a emplacement of easily supportable outposts, in the nearby towns and cities, when the Americans tried to bypass the line and strike at the dams as ordered, they were engaged, and thus this heralded the bogging down of the campaign that is so well known in history, it is also good to note that at the start of this engagement, you only had sparse defense of the walls, and before Model's arrival it was likely that that numerically superior Americans could have taken the entire Siegfried Line without major losses, however those few defenders held on long enough for reinforcements under Model to arrive(this was before my Granddad got there note, he popped up with the repurposed 122nd infantry now the 85th infantry under Bechler who was a adjutant of Model for the campaign.

I'd like to say that my granddad was not new to war, by this point he had been actively fighting off and on for nearly four years, he took part in the invasion of Russia, was at Leningrad and only came to Germany when the Russian Offensive fell apart, Leningrad wasn't as...'graphic' as Stalingrad but it was still immensely heavy fighting that you can find volumes written about if you are so inclined, but anyway I just wanted to establish mentality, its far easier to write this sober I find anyway.

Moving back to the story of Hurtgen, I think sufficient context has been established-The Americans are still trying to bypass the primary defenses, German reinforcements are incoming, Omar is getting frustrated by his own logistical and supply train breaking down behind him leaving him in a uneviable position. Picture it in your head if you will, its fall, in southern germany, the rain is coming almost daily, there is a chill in the air, its muddy and grimy and miserable. Now add in combat to that, the smell of burning wood and gun powder, cooking flesh and blood, the rot of corpses, do you have that internal image yet? Visualize the carnage and apply the situation to your mind.

Good, that's as close to what you will ever get to this situation here, My grand was shifted around a lot due to his position in infantry, the Germans were doing Model's favorite kind of warfare, a kind that almost saw success at Kursk, a highly mobile and defensive action, they would set up positions, engage the enemy in surprise flanking or skirmishing actions and then pull back to reinforced lines, the Americans either had to pursue them into their well laid killzones ands ambushes or pull back, either way this tactic was seeing success, for every infantry unit sent into the gap, another unit would be pulled out missing the majority of its compliment. As it got further and further into November, the winter set in, frostbite, trenchfoot, pneumonia, illness affected both sides in the worsening conditions, as anyone who has studied world war two even a little bit can tell you...the Battle of the Bulge was fought in one of the worst winters in German history, and this was the prelude to that.

With mounting losses and no real headway being made on the offensive Bradley had no choice but to keep committing troops to the grinder, by November 20th the line had still yet to fall, no progress was being made, it was bogging down into the same trench based attrition warfare that the Great War is infamous for, but with German losses far lower then their own, and their own logistical chain actually supporting them better then the Americans for a change, it was a recipe for a perfect storm of death. All Model had to do was keep doing what he was doing, using emplaced guns, armor and artillery he carved into any American expedition into the forests, all the while this was giving the German military as a whole a much needed breather, while Patton's 3rd was rampaging further South, they ran into their own issues and the entire Western Offensive actually stalled outright.

This as everyone would know is where the seeds for Germany's last great offensive would be sewn, but that is enough for one installment into story time with Warder.

Feel free to ask questions, offer corrections, bleh bleh, I don't claim to know everything I just know what I have been told, what I have read, and what I have seen.

As I understand it the dedicated theologians in Christianity at least concluded that our world is the temporal realm (bound by time) while the spiritual realm in which God and Jesus reign is not.

I guess when you toss linear time out the window you don't really need to answer the "but where did God come from?" question.

Honestly, my knowledge of this comes chiefly from a research paper I wrote a few years ago about the 14th century Italian scholar Marsilius of Padua's work, Defensor Pacis "The Defender of Peace", considered by some to be the most revolutionary political treatise of the time, in which he consistently refers to this world, and anything related to it, as the "temporal" realm distinct from the spiritual realm as a matter of accepted theological fact.  My professor at the time indicated that this was the accepted view, that God was not bound by time, but I'm afraid I did not research it further.

The chief focus of his work was political really, he was trying to use scripture to argue against the power of the papacy and that the pope had no "temporal" power because Jesus had not laid claim to "temporal" authority, indeed he argued that the church should be subordinate to the state in both secular and spiritual matters not the other way around.  His themes and ideas about authority in the church arising from the whole body of the faithful and praise for democratic systems were quite influential on the Reformation.  In context, his arguments related to a current power struggle between the Pope John XXII and Louis of Bavaria, the future Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV.  The Pope felt that Louis' policies in northern Italy threatened the sovereignty of the Papal States and claimed broad papal authority over the empire.  John XXII had excommunicated Louis and demanded that he relinquish his claim to the Holy Roman crown (He didn't, he largely ignored John, invaded Italy and appointed his own "antipope" to get his way)

Unsurprisingly, Marsilius too was excommunicated.

EDIT: John XXII, not XII. Also, Louis welcomed Marsilius into his court and appointed him imperial vicar, where he got to spend his days persecuting the papist supporters of John XXII to his heart's content and was ultimately made the archbishop of Milan, so it worked out well for him.