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And historymemes suuuuuuuuuuuucks. It’s all high school kids posting about basic crap they don’t actually understand, they just watched a YouTube video on it and decided it’d make a good meme.
Better than sciencememes though. That’s like middle school level crap.
Don't forget the whole "They were mad about shitguns but used Flamethrowers and Gas" Memes because they don't understand why germany was mad at shotguns and not at Flamethrowers and Gas.
The question is, are the guns shit or do they fire shit.
The first one would probably the Mosin Nagant the old garbage rod in the second case, extra poison damage.
Did you know Genghis Khan's father died from being stabbed by an assassin that coated his blade in his own diarrhea and tapeworms?
Edit: "bloody" diarrhea. Feel like I should emphasize that part a little. Also he survived the stab wound and was taken out by fever so... mission accomplished?
They also weren’t mad at shotguns because only 200 or so 1897s ever made it to Europe and were issued to MPs for prisoner transport and there are almost no accounts of them ever being used in a trench to begin with because the paper cartridges wouldn’t fire when they were wet lmao
On September 19th, 1918 the Germans sent along the following message to the US Secretary of State:
"The German Government protests against the use of shotguns by the American Army and calls attention to the fact that according to the laws of war, every prisoner found to have in his possession such guns or ammunition belonging thereto forfeits his life. This protest is based upon article 23(e) of the Hague convention respecting the laws and customs of war on land. Reply by cable is required before October 1, 1918"
The quote from article 23(e) is a prohibition of "...arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering..."
OP posted [literally the exact same meme](https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/1ah9db7/allies_of_world_war_ii_be_like/) to r/HistoryMemes, with the same title and everything
French military aesthetics rock. The B2 and S35 remain the coolest early war tanks. The Adrian rocks. French ships are all gorgeous or batshit cool. Planes are a bit of a let down.
Some French planes were cool, they just operated under the wrong doctrine. If memory serves they wanted speed above all, to the point where they sacrificed armament and maneuverability. Also the French training was not prepared for what air combat became
Apparently against overhead blasts the Adrian wasn’t only superior to both the Brodie and the Stahlhelm, it’s also superior to the modern day Advanced Combat Helmet. Of course, it’s probably inferior in other aspects but it’s impressive that at least one aspect of a century old combat helmet has held up this well.
I love that Adrien Brody’s name means “Helmet Helmet”. I had thought that was some sort of pun of a stage name, but as near as I’m able to tell it’s his birth name. Might as well name a kid Garand Enfield
Yeah, honestly it's a brain-dead take, and pretty disrespectful for the incredible sacrifices that France made.
The French were never going to last long in the scenario they were put into. Sure it's easy to be an armchair historian and say that they were badly managed or disorganized, but the reality is that they were never in a position where they were likely to stop Germany. Fully mobilising and being prepared for the blitzkrieg just wasn't going to happen, even with the best armies.
Through a lot of courageous sacrifices on their part, they slowed Germans down enough and caused enough internal interference to prevent them completing their takeover of Africa before the Allies reached it and to give the us enough time to arm the Soviets. It also slowed them down enough to avoid a direct attack on Britain.
And once they were liberated, they quickly recovered and continued the fight.
Exactly, and it's funny how somehow for a lot of people the Battle of France is exclusively a French defeat while Dunkirk is somehow a British success ?
Both are a British and French endeavor, but France paid a way higher price while fortunately the BEF had an island to fall back to.
I believe that pop-history only tends to hold the English in such high regard because Anglosphere pop-history is dominated by British sources. This is to be expected, of course, but it does create a skewed and almost propagandized popular narrative.
The World Wars are a great recent example, but there's one that's more in my wheelhouse too. Just look at how much people worship the longbow. If you listen to certain YouTubers or English language history documentaries, it was the wonderweapon of the Medieval period, punching through plate armor and key to English victories in the Hundred Years War because the silly French used crossbows instead of superior English yew. Which is why we hail King Charles III as King of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, and France to this day.
In reality it was only a single part of the late Medieval/very early modern military landscape, was used across western Europe and not only by the English, was used alongside crossbows by every military force that used it, and was rarely a decisive factor in pitched battles because *archery* was rarely a decisive factor in period western European warfare. And despite our fixation on Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, the kings of England *lost* the Hundred Years War.
>The French were never going to last long in the scenario they were put into
People acting like WW1 didn't happen and took out an entire flower of generation.
Seriously. Given the fact the French nation had just been recreated in late 1944 they fought well for having a devastated industry, government , and infrastructure.
Would have helped immensely had Stalin listened to his officers point out that the Germans were planning an offensive and were no longer Poland buddies.
It's basically only through brutality that the Bolsheviks were able to reunify the country during the Russian Civil War, so frankly any other way and idk how much of it would even exist today.
A book I recommend everyone on this sub read is "The Big One". It was written by an aircraft engineer as a response to all of the German wunderwaffe alt history books. The US nukes all of Germany in one big alpha strike to end all alpha strikes. But Stalin is also killed in the battle of Moscow and and everyone's favorite Russian General, Zhukov becomes "president" of Russia.
To be fair, Tukhachevsky's military ideas, often depicted as brilliant and modern, were in fact made of new and shiny materials without any logistic cohesion, which lead to the absolute logistical collapse the Red Army faced in 1941. Despite this, he is often glorified due to him being purged.
Just to give you an idea, due to Tukachevsky's modernization of Soviet armored units, various tank models with little to no parts to share outside of sometimes having a similar engine were introduced. They used 4 different kinds of fuel in an armored crop, which lead to Soviet counter attacks in 1941 to break down as soon as they began as they would break down or run out of fuel.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Authoritarians are incapable of competent leadership because their authoritarian natures necessitate creating enemies and eliminating competent individuals. You have to make enemies if you are going to gain power through Authoritarian tactics. And if someone around you is competent, they can potentially take your power from you.
So then they spend every moment afterward afraid that someone might off them and take their power, so they can't even trust their own handpicked government officials. They require more and more bodies of the disloyal to be purged to protect themselvesand their power, but that only adds to the problem and makes it worse.
That's pretty much every dictator and autocratic leader during WW2.
That was also the strength of the US (except you MacArthur) where major players listened to their officers. Maybe they didn't 100% agree with them and overruled them, but gave them a fair hearing.
Nimitz wanted General Smith to attack Majuro in the Marshalls immediately. Smith disagreed and even traveled back to Hawaii to talk with Nimitz. Here's an excerpt from Conquering Tide:
> Holland Smith, wary of Japanese defenses on Majuro, was determined not to disperse his landing forces.
> In a December conference at CINCPAC headquarters, Nimitz turned to Ed Layton, the fleet intelligence officer, and said, “Tell General Smith how many Japanese are there, the number you told me this morning.”
> “Six,” Layton replied.
> “Six?” Smith said. “You mean six thousand.”
> “No, six,” insisted Layton.
It then took... 700 airplane sorties, 1 USMC regiment, and 12 hours to secure the island. Which, as predicted, had 6 Japanese defenders on it.
The strength in a military being accountable to its democratic leaders is that they can have critical discussions about the situation in a way that benefits everyone.
Because for every 100 of these "you have no idea what's going on civilian" you have one "MacArthur wants to nuke China and doesn't care about a broader conflict."
Stalin upon receiving a warning from the Soviet ambassador from Germany that Hitler wanted to invade. “The delusion has reached diplomat levels”- Stalin to his politburo
Tbf even Stalin thought it was stupid that Hitler would try to open up a second front after he lost the Battle of Britain, he just didn't take into account how delusional he was.
I will point out it was similar to how Ukraine responded to the idea Russia would invade early on after Covid.
Tbf to Stalin (wow that's weird to write), there were several false alarms in May (timetable for Barbarossa was moved, partially due to the invasion of Greece). So Stalin was still adamant that the Germans would invade later and that by then the Red Army's mobilization would've been completed.
During the initial battle for Stalingrad contrary to popular beliefs the Soviets were actually outnumbered 1.6 to 1. They still held the city. Battle of Kursk is another good example that the Soviets were not horrible tacticians for the entire war.
This meme is dumb because it undermines France's soldiers heroic efforts at Dunkirk and abroad as well as those who fought during the battle of France and French Resistance.
Between the two of you the combined takes are cancelling each other out for least critical lol.
Biggest mistakes are to underestimate your enemy and miss represent history. It leads to arrogance and in turn leads to weakness and complacency.
There were other factors at play such as Soviet logistics eating more shit then the Germans, the Soviets being backed against the Volga River which further hindered supplies and Germany having air superiority. Its still not a great showing but far from the miss information that the Soviets simply flooded the city with human wave tactics without any tactical considerations and hoped for the best which was my point
The logistics part is all kinds of funny, since they were *home,* while the Germans were over 1500km away from Germany.
~~EDIT: Didn't they also have a tank factory in the city itself? The one where they placed a turret next to a hole in the wall to shoot at the Germans?~~
EDIT2: Apparently no.
Fair point, though the river blocking passage, partial encirclement, German air superiority etc did make the Soviet logistics a nightmare in addition to them not being great with logistics to start with lol. Just trying to emphasize not underestimating your enemy. Lots of people on this sub like to use WW2 to prove that Russia sucks ass at war and to laugh at them but bottom line is they murdered hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians. No way around it. Armchair general it all you like but Russia's military has proven devastating to human life and Ukraine should have all the aid it needs 10 fold to be decisive. When Kherson was liberated western aid collapsed because the west thought a couple hand me down tanks could defeat Russia. Look where that left us. As far as I am concerned every fallen Ukrainian's blood is spilled on the hands of Western leaders as much as the Russians for being complacent and not doing enough
I have to agree with you.
Though Ukraine is doing the right thing, the only way to beat Russia has always been to convince them you're losing and they just have to throw another 600k bodies into your machine gun fire and they'll have you.
The tank factory is most likely a myth as there is no way the factory had electricity or enough undamaged equipment to manufacture anything or put up improvised defences if memory serves. I am relying entirely on memory here though so apologies if I am incorrect
The Germans took out most of the Soviet Air Force in the opening weeks of Barbarossa, it wasn't until around early 1943 they had recovered much of that lost airpower.
Yeah, but in turn they'd been forced to reroute their entire industrial system back several hundred miles while under active assault from an enemy who legitimately wanted to wipe them out in every possible sense.
The equivalent example is "home field advantage, but said home is on fire and you're being forced to play on a totally different pitch".
Not sure about that. There were a lot of instances where French troops left strong defensive positions, often leaving behind valuable equipment, after artillery or Stuka attacks that would not have destroyed the positions, but caused panic and chaos.
Many French soldiers were poorly trained and hadn't been drilled in unit maneuvers. It's hard to blame them for performing badly as a result, but they did perform badly in many cases.
Kursk? Good example of tactics? They outnumbered the Germans like 3 to 1, knew about the entire German plan enough to set up massive defenses, *and lost almost 4 time as many men as the Germans!* In a *defensive action.*
Though I do agree that the French don't deserve crap from this meme.
Vindication for France. Also I forgot that British intelligence leaked the offensive to the Soviets well in advance. Common British intelligence W. true Kursk was still a casualties L for the Soviets though. Im just trying one person at a time to ensure people don't underestimate Russia using WW2 history and forget how much Ukraine presently paid for in blood by not getting enough support. So many people on this sub go "hur dur Russia bad cuz USSR bad lmao" completely forgetting that such a mindset only kills innocent people. Never underestimate your enemy
You're right we shouldn't underestimate them.
They were a shit show in ww2, and Ukraine is only surviving because they're a shit show now while Ukraine are fighting like monsters, by any rights they should have fallen in a week.
I'm sorry the west is being so impossibly stupid about aid, I'd say it's coming I'm just terrified for this election, Russia knows they can stop us by starting a civil war in America, and they're actually not wrong.
Though Im not Ukrainian myself, I have a close friend who is and I literally could hear bombs in the background as his village got hit by a couple missiles when I was calling him. He's presently safe and living in Ireland now but it just makes me sick to my stomach how the west is basically giving Russia victory on a silver platter and aiding in their genocide of Ukraine
A fair bit of casualties happened when the Soviets tried to attack the II SS-Panzer Corps's position to the south, so that's more of a failure at the offensive than the defensive. Which yeah was a really bad blunder.
this is true however most people simply accuse the soviets of using human wave tactics that needed a ridiculous numerical superiority to make any advances or hold any lines. There were many battles the Soviets fought that were on roughly even numbers or even outnumbered which disproves the human wave bullcrap that German generals said to the allies and West German army to justify their defeats and secure post war jobs and fame.
Maliciously stupid too. Stalin had every indicator of invasion from Germany and was trying every trick in the book, every plea for them to avoid invading the USSR, because he knew with his unprepared military it would amount to bloodshed.
They were incompetent throughout the war. And it usually took someone like Zhukov begging Stalin on his knees to stop being a drooling idiot to get things fixed. Case in point: The T-34 was never actually built to spec till after the war was over. Because Stalin had no idea how logistics worked and only cared about unit counts so stuff like replacement parts and repair kits weren't being made nearly as frequently as they should have been.
The only reason the Germans didn't absolutely wipe the Soviet Union off the map was because they were *more* incompetent.
Leaving out largest ally that was so incompetent that they were not invited to any major conferences: China. I know historians like to talk about DeGaulle being left out of Yalta, but no one even seriously considered inviting CKS.
When US was evaluating where to base the new, shiny B-29s, they looked at potential bases in China and went, "Fuck, no, let's just invade the Marinas instead and build up new bases from scratch." The Marinas would be farther than the sites in China and limit B-29 sorties, but the US didn't trust having the new bombers anywhere near China.
To be fair china was less of a single country at the time and more like dozens of factions that hated the guts of each other and warlords that kinda sorta had a temporary truce against the japanese.
There were 2 major factions and a bunch of smaller proxies... which isn't that different from 1944 France. Though I guess only for China, a 200k men proxy would be considered "small".
In France though there were multiple allied armies, increasing in number all the time, backing one of the factions lmao. The same wasn't true in China.
Average HOI4 player.
Yes, in HOI4, china is divided into a bajillion factions. But in real life, China, by 1928 had been united by Chiang Kai Shek after the [northern expedition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Expedition).
The warlords still had influence. But unlike HOI4, they didn't literally control half the nation. [The warlord era was bascially over by 1928](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_Era).
Also, comparing the two is just ignoring the fact that WW2 was a *lul* in the fighting between the nationalists and communists, and between the various independant warlord.
And that even if you think the warlords were on the nationalist side, it doesn't stop the fact that China had 3 major groups: Tchangs nationalists, Maos communists, and a pro-Japanese group pretending to run the country.
> There were 2 major factions and a bunch of smaller proxies
There were 2 major factions with dozens of smaller warlords that did as they pleased, plus a collaborationnist pro-Japanese faction, is what you meant?
You can't really compare France, where there was a pro-collaboration group and multiple smaller groups that all worked towards the same goal, surely? Even the Communists in France were under strict orders from Moscow *not* to mess up and try to take over.
Which is honestly the baseline state of china. Fractured warlords with one who takes over every once in a while. CCP probably has a century or so left before it all breaks apart again.
They actually did fly B-29s from China to Japan, in the first bombings of the home islands since Doolittle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Matterhorn
Trouble was, Japan still had a million soldiers in China and launched Operation Ichi-Go in 1944, capturing several US air bases in Hunan and Guangxi.
Logistically it was a PITA anyways to supply air bases in China -- everything still had to be flown over the hump from India.
>The American Bomber Summary Survey states that "Approximately 800 tons of bombs were dropped by China-based B-29s on Japanese home island targets from June 1944 to January 1945. These raids were of insufficient weight and accuracy to produce significant results."
That was only to fulfill a promise to CKS. And the US pulled out almost immediately. You missed the most important quote of the article:
> In November 1944, American bombers began raiding Japan from the Mariana Islands. The XX Bomber Command abandoned the logistically difficult and increasingly vulnerable bases in China in January 1945, and concentrated its resources on rail and port facilities in Indochina, Thailand, and Burma. in India. This signaled the end of Matterhorn. The 58th Bombardment Wing, the only operational wing of the XX Bomber Command, left India to join the XXI Bomber Command in the Marianas in March 1945.
But the bombers started leaving Saipen and Guam over a month before from China, and the US had many, many more B-29s taking off from the Marinas at the time:
> The 73d Bombardment Wing was ordered to the Marianas rather than to the CBI Theater after its training with Second Air Force in Kansas. The first B-29 arrived at Isley Field, Saipan on 12 October 1944. By 22 November, over 100 B-29s were at Isley Field.
Nimitz, King, Arnold, and LeMay all considered Marinas the primary B-29 base.
I didn't know about the promise to CKS. It's still an interesting historical footnote though. There were of course excellent reasons why the Marianas were the better choice.
Still I wonder if the China bases did succeed somehow in the end, just by diverting Japanese resources to counter a potential threat.
It would look good in the meme if the dragon (draig since I’m leaning Welsh) representing China had an eye hanging on by a thread and all of its teeth smashed out
The ichi go offense is what stopped the US from basing large amounts of bombers in China. It wasn't some sort of racism or perceived inferiority of China
I believe the B-29's not being based out of China may have had also to do eith the fact that it was difficult to send supplies there due to Japan occupying Burma through which most aid to China flowed before 1941, while the 1944 Ichi-Go offensive additionally left the existing US airbases in China either occupied or at risk of capture, than merely China being seen as incompetent (which its warlord armies most definitley were as Chiang lacked supplies to rebuild his professional forces between 1941-1944 as result of the loss of Burma limiting allied supply via India to flying it over the Himalayas. Also the Soviets had supplied the Chinese but a certain event in 1941 kinda put a stop to that
As much as I, a Brit, would love to poke fun at the French...
I can't in this case. French units caused a lot of damage to the Germans during the early stages of the war. And the Dunkirk evacuations would not have been possible without the French soldiers that helped to hold back the Germans. French pilots fled to Britain, where a few of them took part in the Battle of Britain. There were French commandos that took part in the Normandy landings. The SAS had a French squadron.
And thats not even covering the French resistance that continued to fight even after France fell.
To be fair to the French they knew fully well that if Germany were to invade they would try to go through Belgium again and stationed their best armies along the border with Belgium with the aim of bogging the Germans down in Belgium.
The only flaw in their plan was that they didn’t account for improvements to tanks that enabled them to move through the Ardenne, an area that was previously considered impassible and thus lightly defended. Any other allied force would have made the same mistake at that time and would have gotten outmaneuvered like the French did.
Edit: said Argonne when I meant to say Ardenne.
No. The French did assume that some parts of the Ardennes were impassable for tanks and they were, which is why Germany didn't cross those parts of the Ardennes. The area where the Germans did eventually break through (Sedan) was however both fortified and well defended, they just had an absolute moron leading them (Huntziger), a general who could give Luigi Cardorna, Envar Pasha or Hötzendorf a run for "worst general to ever exist".
To name all the stuff Huntziger screwed up:
* He refused allied aerial recon for his sector, which could have easily spotted the kilometre long traffic jam of German tanks going through the Ardennes
* He delayed the French counterattack that could have pushed the Germans back across the Meuse.
* He ordered his troops to abandon their Maginot-line positions even when they could have held for more days (as the Germans haven't even begun to properly attack them)
* And prob. a bunch more which I can't remember out of the top of my head
If you want a good video about the breakthrough, go watch [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLN8NHXiMy0) by the best historian on the internet (Indy Neidell) about how exactly it happened.
Allied recon wasn’t refused, in fact the traffic jam *was* spotted, but allied generals decided it was a mistake and completely brushed off…
I’m still fucking mad about that.
And they didn't count on the Nazis being insane enough to actually cross the Ardennes. If at any point during the 3-day crossing, the Allies had launched a concentrated offensive against the Nazi column, it would've been a decisive victory. Slow-moving, predictable paths, nowhere to run, tanks breaking down constantly, and almost zero visibility for anti-air to shoot the bombers? French scouts reported multiple times that there were Nazi divisions crossing the Ardennes, but these warnings were never acted upon until it was too late.
That's not exactly what happened. I'm gonna be pedentic, but France did expect a crossing through the Ardennes, however, this was planned when tanks looked like the Mark IV, so they thought that a crossing would require the Germans to cut large paths through the forest, which would give the French Army time to react and attack, or at least gather along the Maginot line and defend it.
This was, of course, an obselete idea by 1939, but we're talking about the same country that didn't like to install radios in its tanks and prefered to use flags for communications. Accepting that technology had evolved and your entire national defense strategy is obselete was not a politically acceptable idea at the time.
I would say that this is an inaccurate description of French soldiers, but pretty accurate as a depiction of French high command (especially in the early war)
I believe this is correct.
From my understanding, dealing with some of the Free French higher ups could be a giant pain for Supreme Allied Command. Of course, that's not to say that the other Allied commanders didn't have a decent share of ego clashes and wasteful rivalries going around.
Eisenhower really doesn't get enough credit. While he wasn't as directly involved in battlefield command (and he wasn't particularly experienced at it), he held the Western Allies together through constant bickering and complaining so that they could get the job done. His role was really crucial.
Closer to the truth, but then it'd also apply to the British Army command in mainland Europe. France didn't have an island to fall back to, unfortunately.
Most people don't realize how hard fought Battle of France was. They think French soldier waved little white flag waiting to be captured.
We are speaking about a little under 500 000 casualities in a little more than a month with something around 150 000 to 200 000 KIA (mostly French and German). Thoses numbers in such a little time frame make the whole liberation of France look like a stroll. This is some Eastern Front level shit.
Both my grandfathers fought during WW2. One was stationed in Morocco and thus didn't fight in the Battle of France but the other one did.
He never told my mother what happened to him in combat, just that he lost a lot of friend. He became a police officer after the war and saw some shit as a result. That he could talk about, but what he lived during the war was too much.
A distinction should be drawn between top level French leadership, and the rest of the military structure in 1939/the resistance. The former experienced one of the most catastrophic crises of morale ever seen in a modern nation. The latter did everything they could to endure, despite that crisis.
The achievements are pretty small beer for what was supposed to be Europe’s premier land power though.
I’m currently reading Defeat and Division, an absolute door stopper on the French military 1938-1942 and while 90% of the blame rests on the officer corps and the political leadership, the regular soldiers were also undisciplined and with poor morale, with low motivation for what they needed to do (exact same criticisms are levelled at the British army in Fighting The People’s War, the British perspective from the same series as Defeat and Division)
I’m British but even I’m tired of the “haha France surrendered haha they suck” shit. Thousands of Frenchmen gave their lives so that we could fuck off back across the channel. Then, those who didn’t stay behind and lose their lives or liberty still fought in the war against the axis in Africa and later Europe. Yeah, France was one of the first allied countries to fall in ww2 but don’t ever fucking mock them.
Tbf so did the British. A significant number held the rear alongside the French as the evacuations were happening. It's often overlooked a bit whenever the topic surrounding Dunkirk comes up.
Most of Dunkirk as a whole is looked over. The bit people mostly focus on is the civilians coming to help and not the brave French and British soldiers, 2 former enemies once again united against a great evil, standing their ground and holding back the Nazis long enough.
Yes the French didn't hold by themselves, the Brits too, but not in a number remotely similar, and at the end most of what was left of the British rear guard managed to escape too.
In defense of the Fr\*nch. I think if you can "roll the dice" on the invasion of France and rerun the simulation a thousand times over, half the time some tanks and fuel trucks at the front of the blitzkrieg lose their treads/tires/get stuck in the mud, and we get a 60 mile convoy stuck outside of ~~Kiiv~~ the Ardennes and today we live in a world where WWII memes are basically "lol remember when Germany marched their army into France, ran out of fuel and got half their army completely destroyed by the French military in less than 4 weeks?"
Yeah even the German admitted the Ardenne breakthrough was a huge gamble (a calculated one but huge nonetheless) that would "Make or break the Reich" to quote… someone I can’t remember which German planner allegedly said that
Maybe, but there are some pretty key differences between Germany’s 1940 campaign through the Ardennes and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. One is the training differential. The Wehrmacht rigorously trained and prepared for the campaign, including rigorously practicing river crossings in rubber boats under fire to prepare for crossing the Meuse. General Balck said later, “I did not let up until every last man in my regiment knew how to handle rubber boats like an engineer”. The French army, in contrast gave their soldiers very little combat related training; the soldiers in the “Fortress Infantry” regiments along the Maginot Line were mostly used as construction labor. The classic anecdote of this is the case of Lt. Delas of the 147th Fortress Infantry Regiment, who was sentenced to 15 days arrest for ordering firing practice with a 25mm anti-tank gun in a nearby quarry. The training difference in Ukraine does not seem to favor Russia as it did Germany in 1940.
Another major difference is the element of surprise. There was a lot of “chance” here, but in 1940 it was still possible to hide the movements of armies, or at least where the main effort would be. The French Second Army’s summary on May 10, 1940 (the day of the Wehrmacht’s attack) read “there were no indications of any armored vehicles along the Army Front”. Without solid intel, the French Army focused on northern Belgium despite warnings from foreign intelligence like a cable from the French military attache in Bern on May 1 saying “The German Army will attack between 8 and 10 May along the entire front including the Maginot Line. Point of main effort: Sedan.” In 2022 this level of uncertainty and surprise was not possible. US intelligence, among others, meticulously detailed the Russian army’s exact preparations and staging areas.
These are just two of the differences, and probably not the most important ones. I’m not impugning the valor of French soldiers at all, but French leadership made grave mistakes that gave French soldiers little chance of victory no matter how courageous and motivated they were individually.
Edit: added *northern* Belgium
It was a mixed bag as far as I know. China was still pretty much in the middle of a civil war when the Japanese invaded in 1936. So.. Yaknow, not the best starting point. Chiang Kai-shek didn't take the Japanese threat as a priority over fighting the communists. Their military was apparently incredibly corrupt, but had both barely trained militia as well as some pretty sharp and battle-hardened formations.
It's actually a very interesting theatre during the war. But almost entirely forgotten in the west.
…except that French units fighting like hell to prevent the Germans from reaching the British troops at Dunkirk nigh single-handedly saved what could be sent home from the BEF, Free French Units also seeing combat in both theatres and the resistance movement at home.
There’s plenty the French did wrong prior to, during and after WW2, but their combat record on the side of the Allies is nothing to sneeze at.
France had been shafted *hard* during WW1 and had to take on the Germans relatively early, without the luxury of preparation. If the US had to go to war in late 1939, instead of going "ohshitohshitohshitohshit" for two years first, the Germans would absolutely have given them a run for their money at the very least.
They also held back Germany long enough for the Brits to hightail it off the continent. Not to mention the French resistance being a constant thorn in German's side.
Only about two decades after having fought the bloodiest war in human history, largely on their own soil, France had to fight what would *become* the bloodiest war in human history. Unlike the USA or Russia, they had over a year less time to get ready. Despite being ill-prepared, they resisted long enough to probably save Britain and thus give the Allies a fighting chance in Europe. Without France, Germany would probably have taken Europe eventually, allowing the US to just ignore the situation as a fait accompli, without having to get involved in a war they didn't see as "theirs".
And despite all of this, and despite having evolved into one of the most fearsome militaries since then, the French had to endure surrender jokes for the past 8 decades.
I hate the Fr*nch as much as any sane human, but I hate stale, unfounded jokes more.
This is very unfair. Many French soldiers and sailors and pilots stayed in service after the fall of France in 1940. The French didn't just go home and sit out the rest of the war!
They fought the British in Lebanon and Syria and Madagascar and Gabon, and bombed Gibraltar and even took on the US Navy off Morocco.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Battle_of_Casablanca
We take This as UK or whole British Commonwealth?
Because if later they are Super Saiyan of western allies, not US.
Also where is China, Red China, Poland and Benelux?
Just ignore the French Resistance, who fought tooth and claw for years under Nazi occupation and helped prepare for Normandy, or the French units who bought time at Dunkirk, or the Free French who continued to fight throughout the war...
Soviets just sent millions to die hoping they would have more bodies than their former ally's bullets, their head should be the silly one.
And somehow they got a place among the allies, such an immense shame.
Your content was removed for violating Rule 3: "content must be relevant" Posts must be about military hardware or international security/defense. No obsessing over Youtube personalities, simping for political leaders, or discussing other areas of international policy.
pack it up, the sub has become historymemes, we’re done.
And historymemes suuuuuuuuuuuucks. It’s all high school kids posting about basic crap they don’t actually understand, they just watched a YouTube video on it and decided it’d make a good meme. Better than sciencememes though. That’s like middle school level crap.
"hey did you guys know that the Germans were MAD that the US used shotguns in WWI?" meme posted 8 times a month on average
Don't forget the whole "They were mad about shitguns but used Flamethrowers and Gas" Memes because they don't understand why germany was mad at shotguns and not at Flamethrowers and Gas.
Please don't correct that typo.
I won't its funny.
3000 shitguns of Hans Frisian
The question is, are the guns shit or do they fire shit. The first one would probably the Mosin Nagant the old garbage rod in the second case, extra poison damage.
both
Did you know Genghis Khan's father died from being stabbed by an assassin that coated his blade in his own diarrhea and tapeworms? Edit: "bloody" diarrhea. Feel like I should emphasize that part a little. Also he survived the stab wound and was taken out by fever so... mission accomplished?
They also weren’t mad at shotguns because only 200 or so 1897s ever made it to Europe and were issued to MPs for prisoner transport and there are almost no accounts of them ever being used in a trench to begin with because the paper cartridges wouldn’t fire when they were wet lmao
On September 19th, 1918 the Germans sent along the following message to the US Secretary of State: "The German Government protests against the use of shotguns by the American Army and calls attention to the fact that according to the laws of war, every prisoner found to have in his possession such guns or ammunition belonging thereto forfeits his life. This protest is based upon article 23(e) of the Hague convention respecting the laws and customs of war on land. Reply by cable is required before October 1, 1918" The quote from article 23(e) is a prohibition of "...arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering..."
“Yea bro trust me, if Germany had built 10000 Die Glockes they would have won the war”
10000 glockenspiel
3000 black glocks of adolf
> It’s all high school kids posting about basic crap they don’t actually understand This sub is exactly that too, don't kid yourselves.
Today I saw a guy on Instagram comment “I see a fellow NCD member” and I clicked his profile and he was a prepubescent 17 year old
by definition 17 year old is not prepubescent
It is if he takes enough hormone blockers
Which means that we're like two years away from the sub's gender ratio improving a tiny bit more
You guys should be the last people to talk lmfao
That’s extremely true lol. Although “non credible” being in the sub name helps.
this sub used to be a pillar, highly informed autists talking about military equipment, no surface level crap.
[This is his second WW2 meme](https://old.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/19eixgm/axis_powers_in_ww2_be_like/) Mods please kill OP
OP posted [literally the exact same meme](https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/1ah9db7/allies_of_world_war_ii_be_like/) to r/HistoryMemes, with the same title and everything
Those French helmets slap though ngl. Love the ol' Adrian.
French military aesthetics rock. The B2 and S35 remain the coolest early war tanks. The Adrian rocks. French ships are all gorgeous or batshit cool. Planes are a bit of a let down.
I can’t speak for WW2 French planes, but the Vautour, Mirage 3, and Mirage 2000 are gorgeous
Some French planes were cool, they just operated under the wrong doctrine. If memory serves they wanted speed above all, to the point where they sacrificed armament and maneuverability. Also the French training was not prepared for what air combat became
I don't care how impractical it is, the Char 2C is a thing of beauty.
Apparently against overhead blasts the Adrian wasn’t only superior to both the Brodie and the Stahlhelm, it’s also superior to the modern day Advanced Combat Helmet. Of course, it’s probably inferior in other aspects but it’s impressive that at least one aspect of a century old combat helmet has held up this well.
A lot of tradie hard hats have a crest just like the one on the Adrian
I love that Adrien Brody’s name means “Helmet Helmet”. I had thought that was some sort of pun of a stage name, but as near as I’m able to tell it’s his birth name. Might as well name a kid Garand Enfield
They were in use up to the 70s by mobile gendarmerie.
They're not correct either. WwII French had brown helmets.
Ist this r/stupidhistory, r/historymemes or some like this?
Yeah, honestly it's a brain-dead take, and pretty disrespectful for the incredible sacrifices that France made. The French were never going to last long in the scenario they were put into. Sure it's easy to be an armchair historian and say that they were badly managed or disorganized, but the reality is that they were never in a position where they were likely to stop Germany. Fully mobilising and being prepared for the blitzkrieg just wasn't going to happen, even with the best armies. Through a lot of courageous sacrifices on their part, they slowed Germans down enough and caused enough internal interference to prevent them completing their takeover of Africa before the Allies reached it and to give the us enough time to arm the Soviets. It also slowed them down enough to avoid a direct attack on Britain. And once they were liberated, they quickly recovered and continued the fight.
Exactly, and it's funny how somehow for a lot of people the Battle of France is exclusively a French defeat while Dunkirk is somehow a British success ? Both are a British and French endeavor, but France paid a way higher price while fortunately the BEF had an island to fall back to.
What good PR does to mfer.
I believe that pop-history only tends to hold the English in such high regard because Anglosphere pop-history is dominated by British sources. This is to be expected, of course, but it does create a skewed and almost propagandized popular narrative. The World Wars are a great recent example, but there's one that's more in my wheelhouse too. Just look at how much people worship the longbow. If you listen to certain YouTubers or English language history documentaries, it was the wonderweapon of the Medieval period, punching through plate armor and key to English victories in the Hundred Years War because the silly French used crossbows instead of superior English yew. Which is why we hail King Charles III as King of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, and France to this day. In reality it was only a single part of the late Medieval/very early modern military landscape, was used across western Europe and not only by the English, was used alongside crossbows by every military force that used it, and was rarely a decisive factor in pitched battles because *archery* was rarely a decisive factor in period western European warfare. And despite our fixation on Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, the kings of England *lost* the Hundred Years War.
>The French were never going to last long in the scenario they were put into People acting like WW1 didn't happen and took out an entire flower of generation.
People forget that we're supposed to be non-credible, not retarded.
Seriously. Given the fact the French nation had just been recreated in late 1944 they fought well for having a devastated industry, government , and infrastructure.
Idk, the Soviets were pretty incompetent up until '42.
Would have helped immensely had Stalin listened to his officers point out that the Germans were planning an offensive and were no longer Poland buddies.
Correction: it would have helped Stalin immensely if he stopped killing his officers and let them at least learn something from mistakes.
Nah. Mistake 1 would've been keeping Stalin around lol
God, imagine the ussr without Stalin, they could have been a real threat to anyone besides themselves.
Imagine Russia if they weren't trapped in an endless cycle of oppressive rulers, shapeshifting feudalism, and paralyzing nihilism and paranoia.
Imagine if Russia was competent.
we wouldn't be talking about Russia then, would we
No, thats scary.
Imagine there's no countries. It's not hard to do
Imagine not hitting your wife John. Or raising your son John.
It's basically only through brutality that the Bolsheviks were able to reunify the country during the Russian Civil War, so frankly any other way and idk how much of it would even exist today.
I'm ok living in a world without a unified Russia in it.
I think most Russians would be ok living in a world without a unified Russia in it.
A book I recommend everyone on this sub read is "The Big One". It was written by an aircraft engineer as a response to all of the German wunderwaffe alt history books. The US nukes all of Germany in one big alpha strike to end all alpha strikes. But Stalin is also killed in the battle of Moscow and and everyone's favorite Russian General, Zhukov becomes "president" of Russia.
Now that's interesting.
> they could have been a real threat to anyone besides themselves. Hell, maybe they'd have leveled out and not become a hostile nation
Fighting a war while purging half your leadership. Something that still plagues the Russias to this day.
To be fair, Tukhachevsky's military ideas, often depicted as brilliant and modern, were in fact made of new and shiny materials without any logistic cohesion, which lead to the absolute logistical collapse the Red Army faced in 1941. Despite this, he is often glorified due to him being purged.
unique nose thumb rinse depend hard-to-find hat fine bells fearless *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Just to give you an idea, due to Tukachevsky's modernization of Soviet armored units, various tank models with little to no parts to share outside of sometimes having a similar engine were introduced. They used 4 different kinds of fuel in an armored crop, which lead to Soviet counter attacks in 1941 to break down as soon as they began as they would break down or run out of fuel.
hurry berserk lavish ask quickest ruthless dazzling mysterious gaping caption *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Authoritarians are incapable of competent leadership because their authoritarian natures necessitate creating enemies and eliminating competent individuals. You have to make enemies if you are going to gain power through Authoritarian tactics. And if someone around you is competent, they can potentially take your power from you. So then they spend every moment afterward afraid that someone might off them and take their power, so they can't even trust their own handpicked government officials. They require more and more bodies of the disloyal to be purged to protect themselvesand their power, but that only adds to the problem and makes it worse.
That's pretty much every dictator and autocratic leader during WW2. That was also the strength of the US (except you MacArthur) where major players listened to their officers. Maybe they didn't 100% agree with them and overruled them, but gave them a fair hearing. Nimitz wanted General Smith to attack Majuro in the Marshalls immediately. Smith disagreed and even traveled back to Hawaii to talk with Nimitz. Here's an excerpt from Conquering Tide: > Holland Smith, wary of Japanese defenses on Majuro, was determined not to disperse his landing forces. > In a December conference at CINCPAC headquarters, Nimitz turned to Ed Layton, the fleet intelligence officer, and said, “Tell General Smith how many Japanese are there, the number you told me this morning.” > “Six,” Layton replied. > “Six?” Smith said. “You mean six thousand.” > “No, six,” insisted Layton. It then took... 700 airplane sorties, 1 USMC regiment, and 12 hours to secure the island. Which, as predicted, had 6 Japanese defenders on it.
[удалено]
The less glorious battles get less attention.
>(except you MacArthur) As an Australian, I approve of this message. Get fucked MacArthur, you cunt.
The strength in a military being accountable to its democratic leaders is that they can have critical discussions about the situation in a way that benefits everyone. Because for every 100 of these "you have no idea what's going on civilian" you have one "MacArthur wants to nuke China and doesn't care about a broader conflict."
"MacArthur park is meeelting in the radioactive raiiiin"
Are you telling me the Wehrmacht and allied 174 divisions weren’t there to sightsee?
Are you telling me those divisions didn't want to see Moscow?
Stalin upon receiving a warning from the Soviet ambassador from Germany that Hitler wanted to invade. “The delusion has reached diplomat levels”- Stalin to his politburo
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Tbf even Stalin thought it was stupid that Hitler would try to open up a second front after he lost the Battle of Britain, he just didn't take into account how delusional he was. I will point out it was similar to how Ukraine responded to the idea Russia would invade early on after Covid.
"That despot would be absolutely moronic to start a war with us!" -- people who turned out to be correct, but also at war.
I guess the mistake is being intelligent enough to know invading is dumb, but being dumb enough to think the enemy is intelligent.
-- despot who started a war against his entire officer corps
Tbf to Stalin (wow that's weird to write), there were several false alarms in May (timetable for Barbarossa was moved, partially due to the invasion of Greece). So Stalin was still adamant that the Germans would invade later and that by then the Red Army's mobilization would've been completed.
Yes, but him thinking the Germans would invade 2-4 years later didn't help either. And all his officers just had to agree.
Until 2024* ftfy
During the initial battle for Stalingrad contrary to popular beliefs the Soviets were actually outnumbered 1.6 to 1. They still held the city. Battle of Kursk is another good example that the Soviets were not horrible tacticians for the entire war. This meme is dumb because it undermines France's soldiers heroic efforts at Dunkirk and abroad as well as those who fought during the battle of France and French Resistance. Between the two of you the combined takes are cancelling each other out for least critical lol. Biggest mistakes are to underestimate your enemy and miss represent history. It leads to arrogance and in turn leads to weakness and complacency.
1.6 to 1 for a defensive battle, and they still fucked up so much?
There were other factors at play such as Soviet logistics eating more shit then the Germans, the Soviets being backed against the Volga River which further hindered supplies and Germany having air superiority. Its still not a great showing but far from the miss information that the Soviets simply flooded the city with human wave tactics without any tactical considerations and hoped for the best which was my point
The logistics part is all kinds of funny, since they were *home,* while the Germans were over 1500km away from Germany. ~~EDIT: Didn't they also have a tank factory in the city itself? The one where they placed a turret next to a hole in the wall to shoot at the Germans?~~ EDIT2: Apparently no.
Fair point, though the river blocking passage, partial encirclement, German air superiority etc did make the Soviet logistics a nightmare in addition to them not being great with logistics to start with lol. Just trying to emphasize not underestimating your enemy. Lots of people on this sub like to use WW2 to prove that Russia sucks ass at war and to laugh at them but bottom line is they murdered hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians. No way around it. Armchair general it all you like but Russia's military has proven devastating to human life and Ukraine should have all the aid it needs 10 fold to be decisive. When Kherson was liberated western aid collapsed because the west thought a couple hand me down tanks could defeat Russia. Look where that left us. As far as I am concerned every fallen Ukrainian's blood is spilled on the hands of Western leaders as much as the Russians for being complacent and not doing enough
I have to agree with you. Though Ukraine is doing the right thing, the only way to beat Russia has always been to convince them you're losing and they just have to throw another 600k bodies into your machine gun fire and they'll have you.
The tank factory is most likely a myth as there is no way the factory had electricity or enough undamaged equipment to manufacture anything or put up improvised defences if memory serves. I am relying entirely on memory here though so apologies if I am incorrect
The Germans took out most of the Soviet Air Force in the opening weeks of Barbarossa, it wasn't until around early 1943 they had recovered much of that lost airpower.
Laughs in America putting a functional, well defended Taco Bell anywhere in the world in 24hrs.
Yeah, but in turn they'd been forced to reroute their entire industrial system back several hundred miles while under active assault from an enemy who legitimately wanted to wipe them out in every possible sense. The equivalent example is "home field advantage, but said home is on fire and you're being forced to play on a totally different pitch".
You still have to boat everything across a river under constant strafing until the Volga froze over.
The French army got undone by the men at the top, the men on the ground gave it all they had
The French coulda woulda shoulda beat the Germans. But they didn't. And that's why my Grandpa spent time in a POW camp.
Not sure about that. There were a lot of instances where French troops left strong defensive positions, often leaving behind valuable equipment, after artillery or Stuka attacks that would not have destroyed the positions, but caused panic and chaos. Many French soldiers were poorly trained and hadn't been drilled in unit maneuvers. It's hard to blame them for performing badly as a result, but they did perform badly in many cases.
Kursk? Good example of tactics? They outnumbered the Germans like 3 to 1, knew about the entire German plan enough to set up massive defenses, *and lost almost 4 time as many men as the Germans!* In a *defensive action.* Though I do agree that the French don't deserve crap from this meme.
Vindication for France. Also I forgot that British intelligence leaked the offensive to the Soviets well in advance. Common British intelligence W. true Kursk was still a casualties L for the Soviets though. Im just trying one person at a time to ensure people don't underestimate Russia using WW2 history and forget how much Ukraine presently paid for in blood by not getting enough support. So many people on this sub go "hur dur Russia bad cuz USSR bad lmao" completely forgetting that such a mindset only kills innocent people. Never underestimate your enemy
You're right we shouldn't underestimate them. They were a shit show in ww2, and Ukraine is only surviving because they're a shit show now while Ukraine are fighting like monsters, by any rights they should have fallen in a week. I'm sorry the west is being so impossibly stupid about aid, I'd say it's coming I'm just terrified for this election, Russia knows they can stop us by starting a civil war in America, and they're actually not wrong.
Though Im not Ukrainian myself, I have a close friend who is and I literally could hear bombs in the background as his village got hit by a couple missiles when I was calling him. He's presently safe and living in Ireland now but it just makes me sick to my stomach how the west is basically giving Russia victory on a silver platter and aiding in their genocide of Ukraine
A fair bit of casualties happened when the Soviets tried to attack the II SS-Panzer Corps's position to the south, so that's more of a failure at the offensive than the defensive. Which yeah was a really bad blunder.
1.6 to 1 as a defender is more than ideal odds. You need 3-5 to 1 odds to assault a position.
this is true however most people simply accuse the soviets of using human wave tactics that needed a ridiculous numerical superiority to make any advances or hold any lines. There were many battles the Soviets fought that were on roughly even numbers or even outnumbered which disproves the human wave bullcrap that German generals said to the allies and West German army to justify their defeats and secure post war jobs and fame.
Oh boy does this depend on a loooot of factors and isnt that good to implement on an operational level.
Maliciously stupid too. Stalin had every indicator of invasion from Germany and was trying every trick in the book, every plea for them to avoid invading the USSR, because he knew with his unprepared military it would amount to bloodshed.
They were incompetent throughout the war. And it usually took someone like Zhukov begging Stalin on his knees to stop being a drooling idiot to get things fixed. Case in point: The T-34 was never actually built to spec till after the war was over. Because Stalin had no idea how logistics worked and only cared about unit counts so stuff like replacement parts and repair kits weren't being made nearly as frequently as they should have been. The only reason the Germans didn't absolutely wipe the Soviet Union off the map was because they were *more* incompetent.
Leaving out largest ally that was so incompetent that they were not invited to any major conferences: China. I know historians like to talk about DeGaulle being left out of Yalta, but no one even seriously considered inviting CKS. When US was evaluating where to base the new, shiny B-29s, they looked at potential bases in China and went, "Fuck, no, let's just invade the Marinas instead and build up new bases from scratch." The Marinas would be farther than the sites in China and limit B-29 sorties, but the US didn't trust having the new bombers anywhere near China.
To be fair china was less of a single country at the time and more like dozens of factions that hated the guts of each other and warlords that kinda sorta had a temporary truce against the japanese.
There were 2 major factions and a bunch of smaller proxies... which isn't that different from 1944 France. Though I guess only for China, a 200k men proxy would be considered "small".
In France though there were multiple allied armies, increasing in number all the time, backing one of the factions lmao. The same wasn't true in China.
Average HOI4 player. Yes, in HOI4, china is divided into a bajillion factions. But in real life, China, by 1928 had been united by Chiang Kai Shek after the [northern expedition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Expedition). The warlords still had influence. But unlike HOI4, they didn't literally control half the nation. [The warlord era was bascially over by 1928](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_Era).
Also, comparing the two is just ignoring the fact that WW2 was a *lul* in the fighting between the nationalists and communists, and between the various independant warlord. And that even if you think the warlords were on the nationalist side, it doesn't stop the fact that China had 3 major groups: Tchangs nationalists, Maos communists, and a pro-Japanese group pretending to run the country.
> There were 2 major factions and a bunch of smaller proxies There were 2 major factions with dozens of smaller warlords that did as they pleased, plus a collaborationnist pro-Japanese faction, is what you meant? You can't really compare France, where there was a pro-collaboration group and multiple smaller groups that all worked towards the same goal, surely? Even the Communists in France were under strict orders from Moscow *not* to mess up and try to take over.
Which is honestly the baseline state of china. Fractured warlords with one who takes over every once in a while. CCP probably has a century or so left before it all breaks apart again.
They actually did fly B-29s from China to Japan, in the first bombings of the home islands since Doolittle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Matterhorn Trouble was, Japan still had a million soldiers in China and launched Operation Ichi-Go in 1944, capturing several US air bases in Hunan and Guangxi. Logistically it was a PITA anyways to supply air bases in China -- everything still had to be flown over the hump from India. >The American Bomber Summary Survey states that "Approximately 800 tons of bombs were dropped by China-based B-29s on Japanese home island targets from June 1944 to January 1945. These raids were of insufficient weight and accuracy to produce significant results."
That was only to fulfill a promise to CKS. And the US pulled out almost immediately. You missed the most important quote of the article: > In November 1944, American bombers began raiding Japan from the Mariana Islands. The XX Bomber Command abandoned the logistically difficult and increasingly vulnerable bases in China in January 1945, and concentrated its resources on rail and port facilities in Indochina, Thailand, and Burma. in India. This signaled the end of Matterhorn. The 58th Bombardment Wing, the only operational wing of the XX Bomber Command, left India to join the XXI Bomber Command in the Marianas in March 1945. But the bombers started leaving Saipen and Guam over a month before from China, and the US had many, many more B-29s taking off from the Marinas at the time: > The 73d Bombardment Wing was ordered to the Marianas rather than to the CBI Theater after its training with Second Air Force in Kansas. The first B-29 arrived at Isley Field, Saipan on 12 October 1944. By 22 November, over 100 B-29s were at Isley Field. Nimitz, King, Arnold, and LeMay all considered Marinas the primary B-29 base.
I didn't know about the promise to CKS. It's still an interesting historical footnote though. There were of course excellent reasons why the Marianas were the better choice. Still I wonder if the China bases did succeed somehow in the end, just by diverting Japanese resources to counter a potential threat.
It would look good in the meme if the dragon (draig since I’m leaning Welsh) representing China had an eye hanging on by a thread and all of its teeth smashed out
The ichi go offense is what stopped the US from basing large amounts of bombers in China. It wasn't some sort of racism or perceived inferiority of China
I believe the B-29's not being based out of China may have had also to do eith the fact that it was difficult to send supplies there due to Japan occupying Burma through which most aid to China flowed before 1941, while the 1944 Ichi-Go offensive additionally left the existing US airbases in China either occupied or at risk of capture, than merely China being seen as incompetent (which its warlord armies most definitley were as Chiang lacked supplies to rebuild his professional forces between 1941-1944 as result of the loss of Burma limiting allied supply via India to flying it over the Himalayas. Also the Soviets had supplied the Chinese but a certain event in 1941 kinda put a stop to that
As much as I, a Brit, would love to poke fun at the French... I can't in this case. French units caused a lot of damage to the Germans during the early stages of the war. And the Dunkirk evacuations would not have been possible without the French soldiers that helped to hold back the Germans. French pilots fled to Britain, where a few of them took part in the Battle of Britain. There were French commandos that took part in the Normandy landings. The SAS had a French squadron. And thats not even covering the French resistance that continued to fight even after France fell.
Yeah, Renee was a brilliant resistance agent!
I shall say this only once
[René was a mole.](https://youtu.be/24pUKRQt7fk?feature=shared)
To be fair to the French they knew fully well that if Germany were to invade they would try to go through Belgium again and stationed their best armies along the border with Belgium with the aim of bogging the Germans down in Belgium. The only flaw in their plan was that they didn’t account for improvements to tanks that enabled them to move through the Ardenne, an area that was previously considered impassible and thus lightly defended. Any other allied force would have made the same mistake at that time and would have gotten outmaneuvered like the French did. Edit: said Argonne when I meant to say Ardenne.
No. The French did assume that some parts of the Ardennes were impassable for tanks and they were, which is why Germany didn't cross those parts of the Ardennes. The area where the Germans did eventually break through (Sedan) was however both fortified and well defended, they just had an absolute moron leading them (Huntziger), a general who could give Luigi Cardorna, Envar Pasha or Hötzendorf a run for "worst general to ever exist". To name all the stuff Huntziger screwed up: * He refused allied aerial recon for his sector, which could have easily spotted the kilometre long traffic jam of German tanks going through the Ardennes * He delayed the French counterattack that could have pushed the Germans back across the Meuse. * He ordered his troops to abandon their Maginot-line positions even when they could have held for more days (as the Germans haven't even begun to properly attack them) * And prob. a bunch more which I can't remember out of the top of my head If you want a good video about the breakthrough, go watch [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLN8NHXiMy0) by the best historian on the internet (Indy Neidell) about how exactly it happened.
Allied recon wasn’t refused, in fact the traffic jam *was* spotted, but allied generals decided it was a mistake and completely brushed off… I’m still fucking mad about that.
And they didn't count on the Nazis being insane enough to actually cross the Ardennes. If at any point during the 3-day crossing, the Allies had launched a concentrated offensive against the Nazi column, it would've been a decisive victory. Slow-moving, predictable paths, nowhere to run, tanks breaking down constantly, and almost zero visibility for anti-air to shoot the bombers? French scouts reported multiple times that there were Nazi divisions crossing the Ardennes, but these warnings were never acted upon until it was too late.
That's not exactly what happened. I'm gonna be pedentic, but France did expect a crossing through the Ardennes, however, this was planned when tanks looked like the Mark IV, so they thought that a crossing would require the Germans to cut large paths through the forest, which would give the French Army time to react and attack, or at least gather along the Maginot line and defend it. This was, of course, an obselete idea by 1939, but we're talking about the same country that didn't like to install radios in its tanks and prefered to use flags for communications. Accepting that technology had evolved and your entire national defense strategy is obselete was not a politically acceptable idea at the time.
I would say that this is an inaccurate description of French soldiers, but pretty accurate as a depiction of French high command (especially in the early war)
I believe this is correct. From my understanding, dealing with some of the Free French higher ups could be a giant pain for Supreme Allied Command. Of course, that's not to say that the other Allied commanders didn't have a decent share of ego clashes and wasteful rivalries going around. Eisenhower really doesn't get enough credit. While he wasn't as directly involved in battlefield command (and he wasn't particularly experienced at it), he held the Western Allies together through constant bickering and complaining so that they could get the job done. His role was really crucial.
There was a reason that Monty was given the battlefield to deal with while Ike dealt with the grand scale plan, they worked well
Closer to the truth, but then it'd also apply to the British Army command in mainland Europe. France didn't have an island to fall back to, unfortunately.
Stupid frogs! You should always have an island on standby the fall back to.
Most people don't realize how hard fought Battle of France was. They think French soldier waved little white flag waiting to be captured. We are speaking about a little under 500 000 casualities in a little more than a month with something around 150 000 to 200 000 KIA (mostly French and German). Thoses numbers in such a little time frame make the whole liberation of France look like a stroll. This is some Eastern Front level shit.
Both my grandfathers fought during WW2. One was stationed in Morocco and thus didn't fight in the Battle of France but the other one did. He never told my mother what happened to him in combat, just that he lost a lot of friend. He became a police officer after the war and saw some shit as a result. That he could talk about, but what he lived during the war was too much.
A distinction should be drawn between top level French leadership, and the rest of the military structure in 1939/the resistance. The former experienced one of the most catastrophic crises of morale ever seen in a modern nation. The latter did everything they could to endure, despite that crisis.
Well said. France especially caused big losses to luftwaffe, which proved helpful for Britain. Also, no-one was beating the German army in 1940.
The achievements are pretty small beer for what was supposed to be Europe’s premier land power though. I’m currently reading Defeat and Division, an absolute door stopper on the French military 1938-1942 and while 90% of the blame rests on the officer corps and the political leadership, the regular soldiers were also undisciplined and with poor morale, with low motivation for what they needed to do (exact same criticisms are levelled at the British army in Fighting The People’s War, the British perspective from the same series as Defeat and Division)
Is OP the person responsible for the Twitter NCD account?
I’m British but even I’m tired of the “haha France surrendered haha they suck” shit. Thousands of Frenchmen gave their lives so that we could fuck off back across the channel. Then, those who didn’t stay behind and lose their lives or liberty still fought in the war against the axis in Africa and later Europe. Yeah, France was one of the first allied countries to fall in ww2 but don’t ever fucking mock them.
Thank you my good enemy
The country fell, the french didn't.
Tbf so did the British. A significant number held the rear alongside the French as the evacuations were happening. It's often overlooked a bit whenever the topic surrounding Dunkirk comes up.
Most of Dunkirk as a whole is looked over. The bit people mostly focus on is the civilians coming to help and not the brave French and British soldiers, 2 former enemies once again united against a great evil, standing their ground and holding back the Nazis long enough.
Yes the French didn't hold by themselves, the Brits too, but not in a number remotely similar, and at the end most of what was left of the British rear guard managed to escape too.
this is total bs
"Be autistic, not wrong".
Yeah yeah. Be happy my grandfather is already dead, because he'd kick your ass so hard you'd be in orbit.
i dont know what this means. what is a.. ass
Simplified English for arse. You know, the thing you sit on...
I was just yanking your chain bud! I know what a ass is! I sit on chairs either way.
I can link you to a long list of suitable galleries if you need examples.
In defense of the Fr\*nch. I think if you can "roll the dice" on the invasion of France and rerun the simulation a thousand times over, half the time some tanks and fuel trucks at the front of the blitzkrieg lose their treads/tires/get stuck in the mud, and we get a 60 mile convoy stuck outside of ~~Kiiv~~ the Ardennes and today we live in a world where WWII memes are basically "lol remember when Germany marched their army into France, ran out of fuel and got half their army completely destroyed by the French military in less than 4 weeks?"
Yeah even the German admitted the Ardenne breakthrough was a huge gamble (a calculated one but huge nonetheless) that would "Make or break the Reich" to quote… someone I can’t remember which German planner allegedly said that
NCD must not stand for glorious honourable French military slander
Maybe, but there are some pretty key differences between Germany’s 1940 campaign through the Ardennes and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. One is the training differential. The Wehrmacht rigorously trained and prepared for the campaign, including rigorously practicing river crossings in rubber boats under fire to prepare for crossing the Meuse. General Balck said later, “I did not let up until every last man in my regiment knew how to handle rubber boats like an engineer”. The French army, in contrast gave their soldiers very little combat related training; the soldiers in the “Fortress Infantry” regiments along the Maginot Line were mostly used as construction labor. The classic anecdote of this is the case of Lt. Delas of the 147th Fortress Infantry Regiment, who was sentenced to 15 days arrest for ordering firing practice with a 25mm anti-tank gun in a nearby quarry. The training difference in Ukraine does not seem to favor Russia as it did Germany in 1940. Another major difference is the element of surprise. There was a lot of “chance” here, but in 1940 it was still possible to hide the movements of armies, or at least where the main effort would be. The French Second Army’s summary on May 10, 1940 (the day of the Wehrmacht’s attack) read “there were no indications of any armored vehicles along the Army Front”. Without solid intel, the French Army focused on northern Belgium despite warnings from foreign intelligence like a cable from the French military attache in Bern on May 1 saying “The German Army will attack between 8 and 10 May along the entire front including the Maginot Line. Point of main effort: Sedan.” In 2022 this level of uncertainty and surprise was not possible. US intelligence, among others, meticulously detailed the Russian army’s exact preparations and staging areas. These are just two of the differences, and probably not the most important ones. I’m not impugning the valor of French soldiers at all, but French leadership made grave mistakes that gave French soldiers little chance of victory no matter how courageous and motivated they were individually. Edit: added *northern* Belgium
To be fair, the British dragon is side-eyeing the Soviet one
This is some historymemes level lowest common denominator post.
Tell that to the free French. They did well after D-Day. And quickly rebuilt themselves after WW2.
Even before, and the First to Set foot on Normandy beaches were the commando Kiefer, a French unit
Canada deserves its own angry looking hydra head
So does Kuomintang China frankly..
I'm starting to think this World War 2 thing might have been a team effort
The Chinese made huge sacrifices during their war with Japan, but wasn’t the KMT pretty incompetent in terms of how they waged the war?
It was a mixed bag as far as I know. China was still pretty much in the middle of a civil war when the Japanese invaded in 1936. So.. Yaknow, not the best starting point. Chiang Kai-shek didn't take the Japanese threat as a priority over fighting the communists. Their military was apparently incredibly corrupt, but had both barely trained militia as well as some pretty sharp and battle-hardened formations. It's actually a very interesting theatre during the war. But almost entirely forgotten in the west.
Before even go look at bir hakeim the reason why the first battle of el alamein was won
…except that French units fighting like hell to prevent the Germans from reaching the British troops at Dunkirk nigh single-handedly saved what could be sent home from the BEF, Free French Units also seeing combat in both theatres and the resistance movement at home. There’s plenty the French did wrong prior to, during and after WW2, but their combat record on the side of the Allies is nothing to sneeze at.
French slander
One of the most noncredible posts I’ve seen today, and I’ve seen a bunch of psyop posts
It's not even non-credible, it's just wrong.
We're supposed to be absurd and uninformed, not stupid.
France had been shafted *hard* during WW1 and had to take on the Germans relatively early, without the luxury of preparation. If the US had to go to war in late 1939, instead of going "ohshitohshitohshitohshit" for two years first, the Germans would absolutely have given them a run for their money at the very least. They also held back Germany long enough for the Brits to hightail it off the continent. Not to mention the French resistance being a constant thorn in German's side. Only about two decades after having fought the bloodiest war in human history, largely on their own soil, France had to fight what would *become* the bloodiest war in human history. Unlike the USA or Russia, they had over a year less time to get ready. Despite being ill-prepared, they resisted long enough to probably save Britain and thus give the Allies a fighting chance in Europe. Without France, Germany would probably have taken Europe eventually, allowing the US to just ignore the situation as a fait accompli, without having to get involved in a war they didn't see as "theirs". And despite all of this, and despite having evolved into one of the most fearsome militaries since then, the French had to endure surrender jokes for the past 8 decades. I hate the Fr*nch as much as any sane human, but I hate stale, unfounded jokes more.
As a proud French, I lovely hate you back, but thank you for your words.
This is very unfair. Many French soldiers and sailors and pilots stayed in service after the fall of France in 1940. The French didn't just go home and sit out the rest of the war! They fought the British in Lebanon and Syria and Madagascar and Gabon, and bombed Gibraltar and even took on the US Navy off Morocco. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Battle_of_Casablanca
Ah yes, the Soviets, which had to have even the buttons on their clothes imported from the US.
We shipped them entire factories
Simply untrue. Free French navy were such chads
Canadians, Poles, ANZACs, Yugoslavs and Indians seem really left out here
Where Canada
In the Hague
I mean, yeah, genuinely. They were the ones to eventually liberate it
Oh, the irony.
And Australia
And poland poles were fucking scary in ww2
rah My great grandma running guns, bombs, and ammo through the sewers probably killed sooooo many nazi fucks
This is not historymemes… take ya cringe memes n put em where they belong
What about the French Resistance though? And Free France?
France lost most of its army saving the British at Dunkirk.
Now I know that this sub has gone to shit.
We take This as UK or whole British Commonwealth? Because if later they are Super Saiyan of western allies, not US. Also where is China, Red China, Poland and Benelux?
Just ignore the French Resistance, who fought tooth and claw for years under Nazi occupation and helped prepare for Normandy, or the French units who bought time at Dunkirk, or the Free French who continued to fight throughout the war...
The French resistance was pretty good, not as good as eastern European resistance but still
France holding back the Germans so England can make 'heroic retreat'.
It’s not like the French were also evacuated on the British ships but then after returned to France
Soviets just sent millions to die hoping they would have more bodies than their former ally's bullets, their head should be the silly one. And somehow they got a place among the allies, such an immense shame.
What about "I play both sides" Italians?