Jump to content
Please support this forum by joining the SH Patreon ×
Sturgeon's House

Priory_of_Sion

Forum Nobility
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    2,029

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    20

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Priory_of_Sion

  1. Deaths Attributed to Stalin

    in History, Culture, and Archaeology

    Posted

    I'd like to know an accurate estimate of the deaths that can be attributed to Stalin's Regime. I'm fairly confident that estimates over 20 million are Cold War-era propaganda that attempted to portray the Soviets as equivalent to the Nazis. These are the figures of deaths I found on the massviolence.org page on Stalin.

     

    Dekulakization

     

    20,000 - The OGPU troika sentenced approximately 20,000 persons to death in 1930 (GARF 9401/1/4157/201). Mass arrests of "1st category Kulaks"

     

    84,000 - Approximately 15% of deported(560,000) died in the months following deportation. First wave of "2nd category kulaks" deportations.

     

     487,000 -The first general census of the "specially displaced" population on January 1, 1932 recorded only 1,317,000 individuals when 1,804,000 had been deported in 1930-1931, indicating a loss of nearly half a million individuals over a two year period. Third wave of "2nd category kulaks" deportations

     

    The Great Famine

     

    1,400,000 - between 1.1 and 1.4 million died of hunger or epidemics in Kazakstan.

     

    4,500,000 - The estimated number of death by famine in the Ukraine and in Kuban varies from four million to four and a half million (Shapoval & Vassiliev, 2001; Danilov, Manning & Viola, eds, 2003, vol. III).

     

    400,000 - The most afflicted areas were the Lower and Middle Volga where excess mortality reached 300,000 to 400,000 in 1933 (Kondrasin & Penner, eds, 2002).

     

    151,000 - According to centralized statistics from the Department of Special Settlements of the Gulag, 151,000 "specially displaced" persons died in 1933

     

    Great Terror

     

    800,000 - Within sixteen months, over one and a half million persons were arrested. Half of these persons (800,000) were sentenced to death

     

    Katyn Massacre

     

    25,700 - Katyn Massacre

     

    Grand Sum: 7,867,700 (approximately half that of the number killed by the Nazis in the USSR)

     

    I assume many prisoners who were not executed died in prisons and mass deportations took a good deal of lives but I do not see how this number can increase signifigantly like the 20-30 million figure that is tossed around to "prove" Stalin killed more than Hitler. 

  3. Saudi Arabia to begin operations in Yemen

    in Open Discussion

    Posted

    Over/under on the number of beheadings committed? 

    AQAP thinks the beheadings are barbaric. Strange World. I'm pretty sure the Houthis aren't big on beheading either. 

     

    It wouldn't surprise me if the Saudis behead the leader of the Houthis(Abdul-Malik al-Houthi) if he is captured, but they have varying ways to execute people if they decide to do that. 

     

    I'll go with 1, until ISIS shows up to the party. 

  5. The M4 Sherman Tank Epic Information Thread.. (work in progress)

    in Mechanized Warfare

    Posted

    The BRL report would be appreciated, so that I could beat people over the head with the actual document instead of just a reference to it.

    Zaloga took these graphs and crunched the numbers to get his figures.

    bxwWdOS.png

    eIk3lrf.png

    ALSx0Hd.png

     

    I would use this with conjunction with Zaloga's commentary. 

     

    Forczyk's Commentary on Death Traps

    Death Traps, a poorly written memoir by Belton Y. Cooper promises much, but delivers little. Cooper served as an ordnance lieutenant in the 3rd Armor Division (3AD), acting as a liaison officer between the Combat Commands and the Division Maintenance Battalion. One of the first rules of memoir writing is to focus on events of which the author has direct experience; instead, Cooper is constantly discussing high-level or distant events of which he was not a witness. Consequently, the book is riddled with mistakes and falsehoods. Furthermore, the author puts his main effort into an over-simplified indictment of the American Sherman tank as a "death trap" that delayed eventual victory in the Second World War.
     
    Cooper's indictment of the Sherman tank's inferiority compared to the heavier German Panther and Tiger tanks ignores many important facts. First, the Sherman was designed for mass production and this allowed the Allies to enjoy a 4-1 superiority in numbers. Second, fewer than 50% of the German armor in France in 1944 were Tigers or Panthers. Third, if the German tanks were as deadly as Cooper claims, why did the Germans lose 1,500 tanks in Normandy against about 1,700 Allied tanks? Indeed, Cooper claims that the 3AD lost 648 Shermans in the war, but the division claimed to have destroyed 1,023 German tanks. Clearly, there was no great kill-ratio in the German favor, and the Allies could afford to trade tank-for-tank. Finally, if the Sherman was such a "death trap," why did the US Army use it later in Korea or the Israelis use it in the 1967 War?
     
    There are a great number of mistakes in this book, beginning with Cooper's ridiculous claim that General Patton was responsible for delaying the M-26 heavy tank program. Cooper claims that Patton was at a tank demonstration at Tidworth Downs in January 1944 and that, "Patton...insisted that we should downgrade the M26 heavy tank and concentrate on the M4....This turned out to be one of the most disastrous decisions of World War II, and its effect upon the upcoming battle for Western Europe was catastrophic." Actually, Patton was in Algiers and Italy for most of January 1944, only arriving back in Scotland on 26 January. In fact, it was General McNair of Ground Forces Command, back in the US, who delayed the M-26 program. Cooper sees the M-26 as the panacea for all the US Army's shortcomings and even claims that the American offensive in November 1944, "would have succeeded if we had had the Pershing" and the resulting American breakthrough could have forestalled the Ardennes offensive and "the war could have ended five months earlier." This is just sheer nonsense and ignores the logistical and weather problems that doomed that offensive.
     
    Cooper continually discusses events he did not witness and in fact, only about one-third of the book covers his own experiences. Instead of discussing maintenance operations in detail, Cooper opines about everything from U-Boats, to V-2 rockets, to strategic bombing, to the July 20th Plot. He falsely states that, "the British had secured a model of the German enigma decoding machine and were using it to decode German messages." Cooper writes, "not until July 25, the night before the Saint-Lo breakthrough, was Rommel able to secure the release of the panzer divisions in reserve in the Pas de Clais area." Actually, Rommel was wounded on 17 July and in a hospital on July 25th. In another chapter, Cooper writes that, "the British had bombed the city [Darmstadt] during a night raid in February," and "more than 40,000 died in this inferno." Actually, the RAF bombed Darmstadt on 11 September 1944, killing about 12,000. Dresden was bombed on 13 February 1945, killing about 40,000. Obviously, the author has confused cities and raids.
     
    Even where Cooper is dealing with issues closer to his own experience, he tends to exaggerate or deliver incorrect information. He describes the VII Corps as an "armor corps," but it was not. Cooper's description of a counterattack by the German Panzer Lehr division is totally inaccurate; he states that, "July 11 became one of the most critical in the battle of Normandy. The Germans launched a massive counterattack along the Saint-Lo- Saint Jean de Daye highway..." In fact, one under strength German division attacked three US divisions. The Americans lost only 100 casualties, while the Germans suffered 25% armor losses. The Official history calls this attack "a dismal and costly failure." Cooper wrote that, "Combat Command A...put up a terrific defense in the vicinity of Saint Jean de Daye..." but actually it was CCB, since CCA in reserve. On another occasion, Cooper claims that his unit received the 60,000th Sherman produced, but official records indicate that only 49,234 of all models were built. Cooper claims that the 3rd Armored Division had 17,000 soldiers, but the authorized strength was about 14,500. Can't this guy remember anything correctly?
     
    Cooper's description of the death of MGN Rose is virtually plagiarized from the official history and a number of articles in ARMOR magazine in the past decade reveal that Rose was an extreme risk-taker. Reading "Death Traps," the uninitiated may actually believe that the US Army was badly defeated in Europe. Cooper even claims that, as the 3rd Armored Division approached the Elbe River in the last days of the war that, "with our division spread out and opposed by three new divisions, our situation was critical." If anybody's situation was critical in April 1945, it was Germany's. Actually, the 3rd Armored Division had one key weakness not noted by Cooper, namely the shortage of infantry. The division had a poor ratio of 2:1 between tanks and infantry, and this deficiency often required the 3AD to borrow an infantry RCT from other units. While the much-maligned Sherman tank was far from perfect, it did the job it was designed for, a fact that is missed by this author.
     
    Extra Comments

    Check out the fighting at Arracourt in September 1944 where standard M4s from 4th AD destroyed two brigades worth of Panthers for only 14 Shermans, a kill ratio of better than 5-1. Yes, the German tankers at Arracourt were rookies and the US tankers had the advantage - just like Barkmann and Whittman had over Allied tankers in June 1944. That's war. At Arracourt, Shermans routinely destroyed Panthers. For more, check out my upcoming book Panther vs T-34 for more info on Panther's actual abilities. Certainly it would have been great if the Sherman had a better main gun in June 1944, but the "Sherman was a bad tank" school are only looking at one aspect. The Sherman's mechanical reliability was a far more important factor than a gun with better penetration. I keep looking for instances where German tanks "slaughtered" US tanks in 1944-45 (ie kill ratios of 2-1 or 3-1 or better) and can't find any major such instances (2-3 tanks lost 1 1 Tiger or Panther, yes, but not whole companies like on the Eastern Front.

     
     

    Actually, comments such as "It took about 5 Shermans to kill 1 Panther, of which the Panther would kill 3" are not facts, they are unsubstantiated opinions. Any analysis of actual tank losses reveals that US tank losses were not three times German tank losses or even double. Far More US tanks were destroyed by AT guns and Panzerfausts than German tanks and the humble StuG III accounted for far more successes than Panthers. One look at the German tank "aces" reveals that aside from Barkmann(Me -> Barkmann's success is very questionable, Richard Anderson suggests Barkmann knocked out two Stuarts and come trucks at his corner), there were few Panther aces on the Western Front, but a fair number of successful Pz IV and StuG III commanders. US tank crew losses were not catastrophic as you are suggesting, heavy in some units, but far less than infantry units. On the other hand, the Panzerwaffe had far fewer veterans by December 1944 and had to fight a two-front war (three if you count Italy). The idea that the Sherman was only suitable for the Pacific is ipso facto absurd, since it was the Sherman that won the war in the ETO. If we had to wait for the Pershing, the war would either have dragged into 1946 or the Soviets would have been sitting on the Rhine.

     

    I also have some information in this thread about the M4 and its casualty rates. There's some cool statistics there like 29% of frontal hits of Tigers and Panthers were penetrations. 

  7. Saudi Arabia to begin operations in Yemen

    in Open Discussion

    Posted

    Changed to more readable font and size.

    I just copied & pasted and it kept format. I was too lazy to edit it. Thank Lucifer I have you to do that for me. I love you just as much as the Saudis hate those Houthi rebels. This is why we had Walter get us married. 

     

    Back to the Yemen thing, an insightful comment from J.M. Berger "Seriously, what's the best case outcome that realistically proceeds from backing Hadi at this stage?"

     

    I really don't know what outcome this will bring to Yemen, but at least Yemen was already a hell-hole so its just SNAFU.

  8. Saudi Arabia to begin operations in Yemen

    in Open Discussion

    Posted

    America's take:

    The United States strongly condemns ongoing military actions taken by the Houthis against the elected government of Yemen.  These actions have caused widespread instability and chaos that threaten the safety and well-being of all Yemeni citizens.

    The United States has been in close contact with President Hadi and our regional partners.  In response to the deteriorating security situation, Saudi Arabia, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, and others will undertake military action to defend Saudi Arabia’s border and to protect Yemen’s legitimate government.  As announced by GCC members earlier tonight, they are taking this action at the request of Yemeni President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

    The United States coordinates closely with Saudi Arabia and our GCC partners on issues related to their security and our shared interests.  In support of GCC actions to defend against Houthi violence, President Obama has authorized the provision of logistical and intelligence support to GCC-led military operations.  While U.S. forces are not taking direct military action in Yemen in support of this effort, we are establishing a Joint Planning Cell with Saudi Arabia to coordinate U.S. military and intelligence support.

    At the same time, the United States continues to closely monitor terrorist threats posed by al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula and will continue to take action as necessary to disrupt continuing, imminent threats to the United States and our citizens.

    We strongly urge the Houthis to halt immediately their destabilizing military actions and return to negotiations as part of the political dialogue.  The international community has spoken clearly through the UN Security Council and in other fora that the violent takeover of Yemen by an armed faction is unacceptable and that a legitimate political transition – long sought by the Yemeni people – can be accomplished only through political negotiations and a consensus agreement among all of the parties. - NSC spokesperson B. Meehan

  13. Saudi Arabia to begin operations in Yemen

    in Open Discussion

    Posted

    (Washington, DC) --  Today, the Saudi Ambassador to the United States Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir hosted a press conference at the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia and issued the following statement:


    “Saudi Arabia has launched military operations in Yemen, as part of a coalition of over ten countries in response to a direct request from the legitimate government of Yemen. The operation will be limited in nature, and designed to protect the people of Yemen and its legitimate government from a takeover by the Houthis. A violent extremist militia. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries tried to facilitate a peaceful transition of government in Yemen, but the Houthis have continuously undercut the process by occupying territory and seizing weapons belonging to the government. In spite of repeated efforts by the GCC, G10 countries and the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General to seek a peaceful way to implement the GCC initiatives and the outcomes of the national dialogue that define the political transition in Yemen, the Houthis have reneged on every single agreement they have made and continue their quest to take over the country by violent means. They captured the capital city of Sana’a, they placed the legitimate president, prime minister and cabinet members under house arrest, they seized the security services and they continue to expand their occupation of the country.”


    “In a letter dated March 7, 2015, President Hadi of Yemen made a request of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz to convene a conference under the auspices of the GCC to which all Yemeni political factions seeking to preserve security and stability in Yemen would be invited. The Houthis rejected this invitation and continued their violent onslaught in Yemen to the point where they were threatening to occupy the city of Aden, which had become the temporary capital for the legitimate government of President Hadi after he was able to escape from Sana’a. In a letter, dated March 24, 2015, President Hadi requested, based on the principle of self-defense, enshrined in Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, as well as in the Arab League charter’s collective defense mechanism, a request for immediate support – by all means necessary – including military intervention to protect Yemen and its people from the continued Houthi aggression and to support it in fighting al Qaeda and ISIL.”


    “Based on the appeal from President Hadi, and based on the Kingdom’s responsibility to Yemen and its people, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, along with its allies within the GCC and outside the GCC, launched military operations in support of the people of Yemen and their legitimate government.”


    “May God Almighty protect the brave soldiers and may He grant them success in their noble mission.”


     


    Source


  20. Killing Pluto

    in Dr. Strangelove's Nuclear Palace

    Posted

    Honestly I'd imagine there'd also be major backlash from burgeoning demographic groups such as leukemia patients and future leukemia patients.

     

    If Pluto is a planet we get to memorize hundreds of planets because the categorization no longer makes sense.

      

    You sure? I thought they would die pretty quick.

    The point why I hate planeters.

    How hard would it be to apply charon to pluto?

    Not a planet.

  21. Killing Pluto

    in Dr. Strangelove's Nuclear Palace

    Posted

    I would imagine that testing Pluto would have involved major hippie backlash that would have been absolute hell for whoever was president at the time. Any nuclear test after Castle Bravo really gave a lot of the public a poor image on nuclear weapons. Could good 'ole politics been the reason why Pluto was dropped?

     

    When I first saw this thread I thought it was about making Pluto a dwarf planet forever. I get annoyed by people wanting to make it a planet. It never was a real planet. 

  23. Challenge: Redraw the Middle East

    in Historical Warfare

    Posted

    I do agree that economics can make a very stable nation, but I'm not too convinced that the economies of some Mid East nations can become that good and stable for that to be plausible for every nation. Power structure and management are probably more important that economies in the long run, but right now the current governments there are doing a pretty poor job across the board. 

     

    Multicultural states with varying ethno-religious groups have existed before but many end up splitting up like Yugoslavia which is a scenario which I think is very plausible at this time. 

  24. Challenge: Redraw the Middle East

    in Historical Warfare

    Posted

    I'd honestly expect the Kurds to come out with a solid chunk of land, especially if they can keep things smooth with Turkey.

    Wouldn't be surprising in Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan. Iranian and Turkish Kurdistan would be a little harder to unify. If we go in the spirit of the thread that sorta assumes the map can be completely re-written then multiple Kurdish states(North Khorasan, Kurmanji Language State, Sorani State, Gorani State, Feyli State). I have had trouble discerning where the divisions between Kurdish language and religious groups of Kurds occur though, especially in western Iran. 

×
×
  • Create New...