The Missiletoe Command Arcade & Slushy Bar

I need to get better at replying to my reps. People keep saying such nice things to me and I almost never thank them until like 3 days later when it would mean so much less than on the next day.

_Sian_ said:

You... May regret this some day

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Uh oh... xD

Black-Marlin said:

I am at the awesome-est bit.

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Totes jelly! Not if, but when it gets published, I will def. be snagging a copy.

CAMueller said:

I should say fun to read. I like serious/heavy things. So...my sense of fun is, shall we say, skewed.

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Oh dude, it's always so nice to run into fellow seriousness-lovers, I can't even emphasize that enough.

The latest news: my mother has congestive heart failure, the same thing that killed my father. That explains the dropsy. They don't know what's causing the dropsy, but they did a stress test to see how much damage has been done to her heart. She failed the stress test: her heart is in good shape, but the arteries aren't.

Long story short: my sister and I, as medical power of attorney, had to go down tonight and sign papers so that they can do a heart catheterization tomorrow. It's risky as hell -- she's 78 -- but the alternative is a death by inches with repeated bouts of dropsy.

Not a good day in Hillbilly Land today. Or tomorrow, for that matter.

Raventongue said:

Yes, it is possible. I dunno if I have seen any examples, but either way it can be done. Check the TVTropes page (at your own risk ) for Knight Templar.

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I just realised, I have seen an example. Not in a book, but I have. I've been obsessed with Saint's Row 3 lately and one of the main antagonists from that game totally fits the bill of being a Knight Templar.

That might be where I got the idea, my brain just hid it from me until I could use it.

jallenecs said:

The latest news: my mother has congestive heart failure, the same thing that killed my father. That explains the dropsy. They don't know what's causing the dropsy, but they did a stress test to see how much damage has been done to her heart. She failed the stress test: her heart is in good shape, but the arteries aren't.

Long story short: my sister and I, as medical power of attorney, had to go down tonight and sign papers so that they can do a heart catheterization tomorrow. It's risky as hell -- she's 78 -- but the alternative is a death by inches with repeated bouts of dropsy.

Not a good day in Hillbilly Land today. Or tomorrow, for that matter.

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jallenecs said:

The latest news: my mother has congestive heart failure, the same thing that killed my father. That explains the dropsy. They don't know what's causing the dropsy, but they did a stress test to see how much damage has been done to her heart. She failed the stress test: her heart is in good shape, but the arteries aren't.

Long story short: my sister and I, as medical power of attorney, had to go down tonight and sign papers so that they can do a heart catheterization tomorrow. It's risky as hell -- she's 78 -- but the alternative is a death by inches with repeated bouts of dropsy.

Not a good day in Hillbilly Land today. Or tomorrow, for that matter.

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.

jallenecs said:

The latest news: my mother has congestive heart failure, the same thing that killed my father. That explains the dropsy. They don't know what's causing the dropsy, but they did a stress test to see how much damage has been done to her heart. She failed the stress test: her heart is in good shape, but the arteries aren't.

Long story short: my sister and I, as medical power of attorney, had to go down tonight and sign papers so that they can do a heart catheterization tomorrow. It's risky as hell -- she's 78 -- but the alternative is a death by inches with repeated bouts of dropsy.

Not a good day in Hillbilly Land today. Or tomorrow, for that matter.

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Junely...

Many zen hugs and best wishes, Junely.

Started reading one of the books I ordered today. it's pretty good so far.

jallenecs said:

The latest news: my mother has congestive heart failure, the same thing that killed my father. That explains the dropsy. They don't know what's causing the dropsy, but they did a stress test to see how much damage has been done to her heart. She failed the stress test: her heart is in good shape, but the arteries aren't.

Long story short: my sister and I, as medical power of attorney, had to go down tonight and sign papers so that they can do a heart catheterization tomorrow. It's risky as hell -- she's 78 -- but the alternative is a death by inches with repeated bouts of dropsy.

Not a good day in Hillbilly Land today. Or tomorrow, for that matter.

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The amount of hugs that I would give you if I could.

Egads, we've moved.




Again.

Let me ask you all a question. Got to get the question in now, because Boston is here, and I want his opinion, as well.

Okay, according to my dad (who was a history buff, and was alive during all this), Hitler's military campaign suffered two serious errors. (okay, there were others, but these were the biggies). First, the obvious: he tried to conduct a war on two fronts and one of those fronts was Russia. A war on two fronts is suicidal. One of those fronts being a land war in Asia? Not even Napoleon could pull that one off. If he wanted to take on Asia, he should have waited until he had consolidated his hold on the entirety of Europe, and hardened his defenses against any potential American/Canadian/Anzac incursion.

Second. The Battle of Dunkirk. Not to put too fine a point on it, the Germans had beaten the Brits, for all intents and purposes at the end of that battle. If he had pressed his advantage and wiped out those forces, and followed that up by an immediate invasion of the U.K, things could have turned out differently Could he have held the U.K. once he got it? Meh, that's debatable. But with the UK under control, it becomes exceedingly difficult for any non-Europeans (Americans, Canadians and Anzacs) to intervene.

So. Now to the question. What if the German forces had NOT made those two mistakes. How would you see it changing the face of the war after 1940?

My WW2 history isn't the best by a long stretch, but I'll give my tuppence on this:

First: If Hitler hadn't been stupid enough to try invading Russia, odds are at some point Russia would have taken the fight to him anyway. The two weren't exactly friends. If that had happened, really I think it would have come down to a matter of if Germany had locked up the other front first. If not, we're back where we started. If so, it would have been a much closer battle... but I still think Russia would have taken them.

Because Russia is the kind of country that, at that point, you really didn't want to have a fight with for any reason if you could hope to avoid it. Because they can steamroll you.

I can't speak to what would have happened if Germany had taken the U.K, because I honestly find it hard to believe it could have happened. The U.K, for all our small size and tea-drinking, is kind of a bitch to try and take over. The whole "being an island" thing works in our favour, since to get at us Germany would have had to go by the channel and that... probably wouldn't have worked too well for them.

To make a prediction, if Germany had tried to push across to England their forces on the water would have faced such opposition that they'd have lost a good chunk of their stuff and thus have been in pretty poor shape for a land-based campaign once they got to the other side.

And if the Blitz proved anything it's that aerial assaults are something we can deal with.

But like I said, I'm not a history buff by any definition, so I'm mostly just rambling nonsense for the sake of being included in the discussion.

I'll answer these, but a quick caveat: though a historian by training, it's been years since I studied WWII in any sort of depth. So take all this with that grain of salt.

jallenecs said:

First, the obvious: he tried to conduct a war on two fronts and one of those fronts was Russia. A war on two fronts is suicidal.

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Agreed, but bear in mind Pearl Harbor forced his hand. Prior to that, the war on the Western Front was just about done. France was subdued, the Brits were hunkered down on their island, and it was going to be a while before anything happened there.

Then the Japanese attack the US, and Germany has little choice. Hitler was livid about the attack, incidentally.

All of which is moot, because it was doomed from the start. They - the Germans - were never going to be in a position to beat the Russians on their home turf, and after what happened with the division of Poland, Stalin would not have trusted any attempt at a truce/cease fire. A German defeat was essentially inevitable.

It's a matter of numbers, like if we took on China. Yeah, we're more modern, have far better projection capability, and all that... but they outnumber us so badly that the moment we hit their home turf all they'd have to do is keep coming at us.

Never get into a land war in Asia. Remember that.

jallenecs said:

Second. The Battle of Dunkirk. [...] If he had pressed his advantage and wiped out those forces, and followed that up by an immediate invasion of the U.K, things could have turned out differently Could he have held the U.K. once he got it?

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Lemme look this one up again, but in lieu of that, I seem to recall Hitler never planned to invade the UK immediately. The goal was to bomb them into submission, get them to agree to some sort of cease fire, recognizing that, much like the situation the US faced when we were staring down the potential invasion of Japan, that it was going to be very, very ugly if it came to troops on the ground.

Eventually would there have been an attempt to conquer the UK? Of course, but in the short run Hitler was content to simply have them stop fighting the Germans. Bear in mind, the Germans were working on rockets, and this was meant to be the ultimate way to eventually - key word there - bring the UK to heel.

It was recognized that unlike France, conquering the UK outright would more than likely bring about US involvement all on its own. It was one thing to let non-English speaking nations fall; quite another to bring down the parent country of the US (and it's northern neighbor and still UK territory*).

*Least I think Canada was still, at that time, not yet fully independent. I expect the Canadians here to correct me if I am wrong.

Reservoir Angel said:

First: If Hitler hadn't been stupid enough to try invading Russia, odds are at some point Russia would have taken the fight to him anyway.

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*ahem*

Stalingrad.

All that needs said on that.

amergina said:

Quick, close the sheep gate so he can't escape!

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Um... should I be concerned?


Because I feel like I should be concerned....

RA: Agreed on point one. It was inevitable that Russia and Germany would have thrown down. The question, as you pointed out, would be timing. If Russia waited too late, Hitler would have consolidated his hold on Europe and Russia would be screwed.

And while I agree that holding the U.K. would have been much much MUCH harder than taking it in the first place -- you Brits are so much tougher and tenacious than anybody gives you credit for -- I honestly think that it could have been taken. I grant your point, crossing the Channel would have been exceedingly costly; Britain had been THE top dog of sea power for three hundred years, and that's not a title you get out of a Cracker Jack box.

But, again, not to be too blunt: wars are not won in the air or on the sea. They are won on the ground; you just can't hold land you can't put boots on. And, if he did the first part, and wiped out the forces at Dunkirk instead of halting, that would have wiped out 200,000+ British troops, and 120-something thousand Allied troops. Without those men, the British Army was crippled, possibly fatally so.

jallenecs said:

RA: Agreed on point one. It was inevitable that Russia and Germany would have thrown down. The question, as you pointed out, would be timing. If Russia waited too late, Hitler would have consolidated his hold on Europe and Russia would be screwed.

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Again, I don't think this was ever going to be the case.

Even had Hitler consolidated, even had he been able to throw the full German weight at Russia, it was doomed from the start. Russia's main cities are too far inland, the supply lines stretch through too much hostile territory, and the Russians displayed an extraordinary tenacity down to even just the average citizen, that the Germans would have eventually been outmatched.

Napolean was not fighting a two-front war, and he still got his butt kicked.

And the Soviets could match German production, so it was all going to come down to boots on the ground, and there Germany could just not compete.

Also, despite the tendency to lay everything at Hitler's feet, it should be remembered he did not act alone.

Contrary to popular belief, what became known as "the Halt Order" did not originate with Adolf Hitler. Gerd von Rundstedt and Günther von Kluge suggested that the German forces around the Dunkirk pocket should cease their advance on the port and consolidate, to avoid an Allied break.

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via the Wiki gods.

Now, Hitler agreed to it, but in 1940 at least Hitler was still inclined to listen to his generals.

Boston:

Japan didn't want a war with us, they wanted us unable or unwilling to interfere while they invaded the Philippines. So I can derail their actions for the purposes of my story idea; just give them something else to worry about besides conquering the South Pacific. That solves part of my problem.

As for Dunkirk, yeah, according to what I've read, Hitler had already made overtures to Churchill, hoping for a political "solution." He was even hurt that Churchill didn't recognize the Halt of 1940 as a political gesture of conciliation.

So let's remove the political overtures from the equation. Maybe he makes them, maybe he doesn't. But when push comes to shove, he goes ahead with decimating the troops at Dunkirk and then follows them across the Channel.

Now what? How does that change things?

I'm thinking, as RA implied, he'd have a hell of a time holding onto the U.K. He'd already encountered internal resistance all over Europe; the Netherlands and Scandinavia leap to mind for their creative and implacable attitude of "F*** your troops, we're not knuckling under!* I think he'd have gotten the same thing, in spades, from the Brits.

I think you're right, the rest of us English speakers would be hot to get in their and help the Mother Country, particularly America and Canada (not excluding the Anzacs, but they're hell and gone on the other side of the planet, which makes any immediate action problematic).

But -- and this is where I'm struggling -- it would be damned hard for the rest of us to get a foot in the door. The fact that England had held out against the Nazis, and the fact that they were an island detached from the rest of Europe, gave us all a unique opportunity. They served as a staging area for launching a consolidated attack against Europe. Launching such an invasion across 50 miles of Channel is hard enough. Trying to launch it from, oh, say, New York, across an entire ocean? Impossible. The only option would have to be up through Africa or the Middle East, and that brings its own problems.

Or am I completely out to lunch on this?

amergina said:

No... nothing to concern yourself about... err, wait... I mean

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Yeah.

If that was meant to be reassuring....

It's not.

:

slcboston said:

Again, I don't think this was ever going to be the case.

Even had Hitler consolidated, even had he been able to throw the full German weight at Russia, it was doomed from the start. Russia's main cities are too far inland, the supply lines stretch through too much hostile territory, and the Russians displayed an extraordinary tenacity down to even just the average citizen, that the Germans would have eventually been outmatched.

Napolean was not fighting a two-front war, and he still got his butt kicked.

And the Soviets could match German production, so it was all going to come down to boots on the ground, and there Germany could just not compete.

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slcboston said:

Also, despite the tendency to lay everything at Hitler's feet, it should be remembered he did not act alone.



via the Wiki gods.

Now, Hitler agreed to it, but in 1940 at least Hitler was still inclined to listen to his generals.

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You're right on all points. Russia would have stomped Hitler and his generals. But I can push back the time table, for the purposes of a story, yes?

And yeah, I knew he listened to his generals, and he had some pretty good generals. I'm sorry for not clarifying that.

I guess what I'm asking is, if you were Eisenhower, faced with a resisting but still conquered Great Britain, and Russia and Germany at least pretending to be good buddies for the moment, what would you do? How would you conduct your war to free Europe?