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Author Topic: Armchair General General - /AGG  (Read 127085 times)

Baffler

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Re: Armchair General General - /AGG
« Reply #450 on: December 17, 2014, 04:09:22 pm »

I would be rather amused by a protagonist warrior charging into a formation of soldiers and just getting absolutely wrecked. Might make for a short story though.

Nah, we just have to make the faceless mooks the protagonists, instead of an improbably successful lone gunman. That's not something you see too much of though, outside of mostly terrible Star Wars fan fiction.
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Sergarr

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Re: Armchair General General - /AGG
« Reply #451 on: December 17, 2014, 04:11:00 pm »

But what kind of end would a story about faceless mooks have?

It should have some profound and deep meaning, to be eligible for drama rewards.
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pisskop

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Re: Armchair General General - /AGG
« Reply #452 on: December 17, 2014, 04:12:38 pm »

But what kind of end would a story about faceless mooks have?

It should have some profound and deep meaning, to be eligible for drama rewards.
300 Stormtroopers: The story of the tragic loss of a unit.
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Pisskop's Reblancing Mod - A C:DDA Mod to make life a little (lot) more brutal!
drealmerz7 - pk was supreme pick for traitor too I think, and because of how it all is and pk is he is just feeding into the trollfucking so well.
PKs DF Mod!

Loud Whispers

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Re: Armchair General General - /AGG
« Reply #453 on: December 17, 2014, 04:26:38 pm »

Saving private Bob

Culise

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Re: Armchair General General - /AGG
« Reply #454 on: December 17, 2014, 04:27:05 pm »

I would be rather amused by a protagonist warrior charging into a formation of soldiers and just getting absolutely wrecked. Might make for a short story though.

Nah, we just have to make the faceless mooks the protagonists, instead of an improbably successful lone gunman. That's not something you see too much of though, outside of mostly terrible Star Wars fan fiction.
They aren't faceless mooks, but plenty of stories have soldier protagonists who wipe the floor with their warrior enemies through discipline and qualitative superiority.  Unlike pisskop, I'd actually argue it's a bigger sci-fi staple than the opposite case (with a few prominent exceptions, such as Star Wars), since humans tend to fight as soldiers when contrasted with warrior races (from Klingon to Kzinti) in part because they view it as a craft instead of a cultural imperative.  Aliens that tend to be more unified and disciplined than humans tend to also be portrayed as, well, dehumanizing, ranging from strict and authoritarian on up to outright malevolent hive-mind. 
« Last Edit: December 17, 2014, 04:29:11 pm by Culise »
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Armchair General General - /AGG
« Reply #455 on: December 22, 2014, 05:48:17 pm »

There's a good argument to be made that Hitler went for Stalingrad mostly because it carried Stalin's name. Not that it wasn't of strategic importance as well, but that alone wouldn't have justified makinng the city the slaughterhouse it became.
Rereading the thread, this caught my eye a second time more than the first. Thinking about it, Hitler did do a lot of awful shite bad calls in war for the purpose of propaganda. The hilarious waste of resources that was the occupied channel islands come to mind, Hitler spent a 1/5th of the resources he sent towards building the atlantic wall towards what surmounted to building Fortresses on British soil for the sole reason that it was British soil. The man loved the image and lost the bigger picture.

mainiac

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Re: Armchair General General - /AGG
« Reply #456 on: December 22, 2014, 10:30:47 pm »

Yes that would have been stupid if that was the reason.

Stalingrad was a major rail hub and was located near the oil fields that were powering the Soviet economy.  If the Germans took Baku but not Stalingrad, the soviets could launch a counteroffensive and retake it.  The Soviets were highly dependent on rail transport for their offensives in 1942.
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Ancient Babylonian god of RAEG
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
mainiac is always a little sarcastic, at least.

Loud Whispers

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Re: Armchair General General - /AGG
« Reply #457 on: May 21, 2015, 01:55:32 pm »

It would be wiser if the Swiss are goaded to attack.
In fact, you can actually declare war, maintain blockade, and do nothing. No drafts, nothing whatsoever, just make sure that no swiss watch can leave their lands, no millionaires can enter their lands, and telephone lines - thus SWIFT - is cut. They have to surrender sooner or later.
Regardless, my point on Monaco and BVI still stands. Monaco, for example, if France cooperates should fall in 1 hour.
Invading the Swiss is about as likely to result in success as invading Afghanistan or Texas. Likewise, trying to goad the Swiss into leaving their mountains is about as likely to result in success as making a Texan leave Texas.

If the Swiss go down the sheer amount of damage they would cause to the EU would far exceed all damage done to Switzerland, even if the damage was so severe as to make Switzerland cease to exist. There's no surprise that the Swiss have recently done military excersizes aimed at defending against French "mobs" (with strong quotation marks). If the EU declared war on Switzerland, a blockade would be possible with the agreement of France, Germany, Austria and Italy (and Liechtenstein, but who cares). A financial blockade would be considerably harder, as the EU would then also have to get the compliance of every major financial center from New York to Tokyo (and good luck convincing London to put its pound to war against Switzerland). It is notable that Russia staved off economic collapse due to sanctions from America and the EU with forex reserves of $385.5B, whilst heavily dependent on oil, whilst oil prices plummeted to record lows. Switzerland's economy is highly diversified, the country can itself be self-dependent, has the largest European gold reserve and forex reserves of $545.4B (one of the largest in the world), and assets all over the world. Excluding any Swiss financial war shenanigans (such as a Swiss-run EU hedge fund using the EU's own money to kill itself), the blockades alone would do horrendous damage to the poor southern and central european countries, and wreck the financial sectors of the western european countries something fierce. Pretty much all of the EU except eastern europe would have many shits to give. In regards to killing communication between Switzerland and the world; keep in mind North Korea can't stop its own citizens using telephones. Switzerland is considerably more connected to the world than North Korea.

The best strategy in my opinion is to first reduce its power, running an extensive propaganda campaign attacking Swiss history while trying to get maybe the French or German Swiss to vote to incorporate themselves into France or Germany (and by extension, the EU). The resulting political turmoil would be negligible for either European country and severe for Switzerland (what with a chunk of it being missing and all) and once Switzerland's capabilities to defend itself are marginalized, pressure it into joining the EU or just ducktape it in enough treaties until it is de facto is an EU province. Invasions of smaller European countries like Monaco is both hilarious and feasible, but not profitable. It can be justified on political grounds, but not economic.

mainiac

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Re: Armchair General General - /AGG
« Reply #458 on: May 21, 2015, 02:24:10 pm »

War is the obtaining of political objectives by other means.  A war with Switzerland would probably result in obtaining those political objectives swiftly and without a heavy toll of blood.

And this whole fortress Switzerland thing is quite an exageration.
Near Bern: https://www.google.com/maps/@46.956274,7.502604,3a,75y,328.91h,85.25t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sI9mogt7J6-YAAAQo8CDqaA!2e0!3e11
^Not exactly the most difficult terrain

Looking out towards Germany from Basel:
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.519087,7.654746,3a,75y,340.16h,87.82t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1szh96Tzs4np0AAAQW-biwXg!2e0!3e11

The indomitable mountains around Zurich:
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.414473,8.421412,3a,75y,3.39h,82.71t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sjSvCqW949mtzeBfymGqgDA!2e0

Let's look towards France from a random place near Geneva:
https://www.google.com/maps/@46.150653,6.105745,3a,75y,217.38h,77.43t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sCAOWfIi7AY0AAAQZHxezhg!2e0!3e11

There are mountains in Switzerland but they are in the southern tourist trap country not the lowlands where everything important is.
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Ancient Babylonian god of RAEG
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"Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget and I will tell you what you value"
« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
mainiac is always a little sarcastic, at least.

Loud Whispers

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Re: Armchair General General - /AGG
« Reply #459 on: May 21, 2015, 02:43:59 pm »

Quote
"To make a long story short, McPhee describes two things: how Switzerland requires military service from every able-bodied male Swiss citizen—a model later emulated and expanded by Israel—and how the Swiss military has, in effect, wired the entire country to blow in the event of foreign invasion. To keep enemy armies out, bridges will be dynamited and, whenever possible, deliberately collapsed onto other roads and bridges below; hills have been weaponized to be activated as valley-sweeping artificial landslides; mountain tunnels will be sealed from within to act as nuclear-proof air raid shelters; and much more.
It wouldn't be a bloodless war, it'd be the bloodiest war of this century. You can't even nuke the Swiss into submission!
Quote
To interrupt the utility of bridges, tunnels, highways, railroads, Switzerland has established three thousand points of demolition. That is the number officially printed. It has been suggested to me that to approximate a true figure a reader ought to multiply by two. Where a highway bridge crosses a railroad, a segment of the bridge is programmed to drop on the railroad. Primacord fuses are built into the bridge. Hidden artillery is in place on either side, set to prevent the enemy from clearing or repairing the damage.
THEIR COUNTRY IS A GIANT SELF DESTRUCT MECHANISM

Quote
    Near the German border of Switzerland, every railroad and highway tunnel has been prepared to pinch shut explosively. Nearby mountains have been made so porous that whole divisions can fit inside them. There are weapons and soldiers under barns. There are cannons inside pretty houses. Where Swiss highways happen to run on narrow ground between the edges of lakes and to the bottoms of cliffs, man-made rockslides are ready to slide.

The impending self-demolition of the country is "routinely practiced," McPhee writes. "Often, in such assignments, the civilian engineer who created the bridge will, in his capacity as a military officer, be given the task of planning its destruction."
I'm getting real neutral about this shit

Quote
Describing titanic underground fortresses—"networks of tunnels, caverns, bunkers, and surface installations, each spread through many tens of square miles"—McPhee briefly relates the story of a military reconnaissance mission on which he was able to tag along, involving a hydroelectric power station built inside a mountain, accessible by ladders and stairs; the battalion tasked with climbing down into it thus learns "that if a company of soldiers had to do it they could climb the mountain on the inside."
Fuck it, they've literally made Dwarf Fortress real.


I am somewhat amused by the idea of the Swiss all going underground while the EU annexes the surface.

mainiac

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Re: Armchair General General - /AGG
« Reply #460 on: September 29, 2015, 12:25:51 am »

They didn't have radios. The Germans did.

Yeah, that's not actually true.  A standard battalion had 21 radio operators and each platoon had a platoon radio operator.  That is a good number of radio operators for 1940.  Keep in mind that this is when the cutting edge of walkie talkie technology was a heavy backpack unit that made a soldier unable to do anything else.

I think there are misconceptions because after France lost so disasterously, people assumed that they must have sucked at fighting.  Thus they looked for problems at the tactical level.  France didn't suck at fighting though, so people are looking for problems at the tactical level that didn't exist and have to invent them by exaggerating differences.  In fact France probably had the better troops at the tactical level.  The problems existed at the strategic level.  Gamelin left a key sector practically undefended which let Germany bypass the French army.  It was only after this encirclement that Germany started winning fights against outmanuvered and cut off French units.  The earlier fights in Belgium between even forces with neither defending had not gone very well for the Germans.  The operational leadership problems are less exaggerated (very poor OODA loops).  But mostly it comes down to Ecclesiastes 9:11.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2015, 12:27:30 am by mainiac »
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Ancient Babylonian god of RAEG
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
mainiac is always a little sarcastic, at least.

Loud Whispers

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Re: Armchair General General - /AGG
« Reply #461 on: September 29, 2015, 02:45:34 am »

Plus you can look at the French rearguard where their fighting was fierce enough to buy the BEF enough time to escape at Dunkirk. They were proven fighters, but could not exactly work miracles

Kot

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Re: Armchair General General - /AGG
« Reply #462 on: September 29, 2015, 08:34:39 am »

Thus they looked for problems at the tactical level.  France didn't suck at fighting
5 gears backwards, 1 gear forward in case the enemy attacks from rear, white flags as standard equipment... yeah.
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Armchair General General - /AGG
« Reply #463 on: September 29, 2015, 11:38:10 am »

Thus they looked for problems at the tactical level.  France didn't suck at fighting
5 gears backwards, 1 gear forward in case the enemy attacks from rear, white flags as standard equipment... yeah.
It's a running joke about French rifles having excellent resell value, as they've never been fired and only been dropped once

Ghazkull

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Re: Armchair General General - /AGG
« Reply #464 on: September 29, 2015, 12:08:02 pm »

Plus you can look at the French rearguard where their fighting was fierce enough to buy the BEF enough time to escape at Dunkirk. They were proven fighters, but could not exactly work miracles

Actually the main reason for the BEF to escape at Dunkirk was Hitler deciding to send the Luftwaffe to bomb the evacuation ships and dunkirk instead of sending in his Tank Divisions. The main reason for that was our dear Goering badgering Hitler long enough for him giving up and just allowing him to show off the German Luftwaffe...which as we know by now thoroughly backfired as hundreds of thousands of british escaped.

If Hitler had have (or is it have had?) sense to send in the Tank Division at Dunkirk to take the damn city instead of idling around, the result might have been an early surrender of Great Britain as all those three-hundred thousand men of their would have been captured or killed there.

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