this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2025
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[–] Weydemeyer@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 hours ago

It feels like it doesn’t happen often, and they paid a very heavy price during and after the war… but this is one where the Good Guys won. o7.

[–] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 9 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

In Vietnam, they call it the American War.

[–] OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

Mary Beard said something similarly about the Samnite Wars. To the Samnites, it was clearly a Roman War.

As a 30-something idiot, I am relearning a lot of history in my free time, and it's refreshing learning outside a public curriculum. Though I grew up in a conservative area, my teachers weren't terrible at showing us the truth, however ugly it was.

[–] asg101@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 day ago

Another reminder: Resistance is NOT futile.

[–] titanicx@lemmy.zip 25 points 1 day ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

I remember years ago I worked at a box Warehouse where we literally put together boxes for companies. I was a shift supervisor and we had a Vietnamese couple that worked there. Sitting down talking with him over the course of my time there was very interesting. I got to find out that he was actually part of the Viet Cong army and he was talking about his experiences there and the experiences of them in general. Overall they were pretty much defeated nearly destroyed and not many left before the Tet offensive. They decided to try to put up a huge show of force as one last big hurrah before they were defeated. They never expected it to actually work and when it did, and the Americans left everybody was shocked as hell.

[–] 87Six@lemmy.zip 6 points 18 hours ago

The viet cong did the equivalent of me raising my hands and screaming at a bear lol

[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Known fact that smoking doesnt just kill the smoker

[–] HazardousBanjo@lemmy.world 129 points 2 days ago (25 children)

You'll find that most history of military and police failures is portrayed as "they were unable to overcome a clever, all knowing enemy" 

instead of the reality which is: "our forces are insanely incompetent, poorly trained, and simply bad at their job."

Police example: everything about Jeffrey Dahmer.

Portrayal: powerful enemy

Reality: skill issue

[–] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 34 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

It's all part of propaganda to whitewash one's own incompetence. It reminds me of WWII when the British lionised Erwin Rommel, in order to cover up British incompetence.

[–] thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 32 points 1 day ago (5 children)

To be fair, the Germans (with generals like Rommel at the forefront), basically invented modern combined arms mechanised warfare. The allies were smacked around hard until they caught on to the concept.

Even more, the allies didn't really win the war due to superior strategy, tactics, training, or equipment, but rather due to better logistics, manufacturing capacity, and more manpower. It's actually a bit ironic that NATO has built its current doctrine around smaller but highly advanced and well trained forces; which is what the Germans relied on, rather than simpler equipment that is easy to mass produce; which is what beat the Germans.

[–] mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)
[–] Aljernon@lemmy.today 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Clicked on the link and no where did it say he was "Hitler's Chief of Staff". The closest I found was Operations Chief for the General Staff. But in either case, yes, definitely familiar with German military doctrine.

[–] mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Shaped military doctine I would say... The man was Generalleutnant at the Ostfront. English is not my first language, what's the difference between the two.

[–] Aljernon@lemmy.today 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

equipment that is easy to mass produce; which is what beat the Germans.

Over simplification. That was the Soviet strategy sure. Almost no changes were allowed to Soviet tank design unless in lowered cost or simplified manufacture. But that wasn't British or American doctrine and they often had much more advanced equipment in key fields like radar and aircraft than their adversaries. I like your first point better though: the allies won thru superior manufacturing capacity. The Americans were a juggernaut and the Soviets managed to move most of their factories east beyond the reach of German aircraft while Germany itself got pummeled by bombing campaigns.

[–] thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago

Sure, the allies had more advanced equipment in some areas (e.g. air power). On the other hand, what made the Sherman a good tank was never that it was individually better than a Tiger, but rather that there were more of them, and that they were easier to repair in the field. Basically, Sherman's were production-line tanks, while Tigers were not. Looking at the production time of anything from submarines to Leaopards in NATO today is what makes me think that's a bit ironic: It takes a loooong time to build stuff today.

So...the United States just can't stop building Abrams tanks. We've got thousands of them, fields full. The US Army has begged congress to stop ordering them. We'll finish four more by Friday.

We, at least, haven't forgottem logistics.

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The latter is what the Russians seem to have gone for. They just never considered that training their personnel was very important, so it never worked very well either.

[–] mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

?? The russians had weathered multiple wars by that point? Like the amount of wars the red army was involved in after the october revolution, they were extensively trained I should think

[–] Tonava@sopuli.xyz 2 points 18 hours ago

Nah, Russia has never cared about its soldiers (or russians in general really), they just rely on having enough numbers to throw into the grinder. Many soviet troops send to the wars against us finns in ww2 for example just froze to death because the leaders were incompetent and didn't care enough about them to order proper equipment.

Part of the incompetence is they can't tell anything negative to higher ups so the chain of command all lie from the bottom to the top, so the leaders have no fucking idea what is actually happening. You can see this still going on in today's Russia; the start of the war against Ukraine was a good example, conquering Kyiv in a day my ass. Putin clearly had no idea what was the actual state of his army. I doubt he still has too good of an idea about what is actually happening out there - people who tell hard facts are likely defenestrated

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Rommel was an ardent Nazi and a bad general.

[–] bestagon@lemmy.world 26 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Some teenagers we plucked off the street

[–] egrets@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago

True for the army and for Dahmer.

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[–] besmtt@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago
[–] RockBottom@feddit.org 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)

As the powers fully turn imperial fascist, guerrilla warriors become more inspirational by the day.

[–] Aljernon@lemmy.today 7 points 1 day ago

The Viet Cong were the inspiration for the Rebels in Star Wars

[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago

Scoreboard! Scoreboard!

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