Oppenheimer (2023)

Araysar said:

Pretty easy actually in a country that's 10 time zones wide, that US can't invade, and satellite surveillance is nonexistent

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Araysar said:

Poland was no innocent virgin either who was Eiffel Towered by 2 mean dictators as Poland annexed chunks of Sudetenland in 1938 as well.

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Poland annexed chunks of Sudetenland? LOL

Poland's a big question mark in the current conflict because I'm not sure if they're going to A) Get directly involved in the conflict to make it an active NATO conflict due to being afraid they're next, or B) Jump in and slice off their own piece of western Ukraine while their armed forces are all over in the east.

Now I'm thinking B is probably more likely. Poland grabbing a piece. That and I don't think they want a direct confrontation with Russia when they have Kaliningrad right next to them.

Araysar said:

LOL Britain

That's a good one.

Britain sucked up all of the magical Lendlease and contributed about 0.02% to the war. They got chased off the mainland and never made it back until Germany was broken.

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So your vote is for Germany?

Cybsled said:

The Soviets had nuclear weapons during the Korean War. Their first nuclear test was in 1949. Korean War was 1950-1953.

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IIRC the Soviets didn't really "have nuclear weapons" until 1952 or maybe even 1953... They tested their first one in 1949 and then it took a while to get them actually produced and ready for deployment. Britain and France had them soon afterwards, probably because the US was spreading them around like Johnny Appleseed. China was fifth but it was a WHILE later, like mid 1960's.

In any case I think Truman had plenty of time to nuke China or Russia with no retaliation if he wanted to. Not that he should have.

Burns said:

Japan would get my vote (guess) for strongest overall in 1938. They had the second best Navy with 3 fleet carriers and a fully battle hardened army that had been fighting in China for years. Their Aircraft was some of the best at the time, with a lot of them in production. They skimped on armor, small arms, and other areas to use those resources on the Navy and Aircraft, though.

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I think you're the first person I've seen argue that Japan was strongest (or was stronger than Germany for that matter). Good points though. A lot of people don't know how advanced Japan's navy actually was. They had some really impressive, modern ships.

Putting aside how badly it fared, Japan's Yamato really was the archetype of a battleship:

DickTrickle said:

All argument aside, I think Rajaah must have went to the worst high school in the world because he mentions being misled by his textbook/school in basically every single post.

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I have this big chip on my shoulder lately about "how much I've been lied to". Particularly by news media and movies, but I also suspect the history books are pretty far off given they're biased towards the winners. So much of what I learned turned out to later be grossly oversimplified or distorted in favor of a narrative. Nothing against my textbooks (I don't even remember what exactly they said), it's more that the bar for my expectations has gotten so low that it has burrowed into the Earth's crust.

Edit: We should probably have a WW2 thread, lot of interesting stuff here and it's in a thread for a movie

Rajaah said:

So your vote is for Germany?

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Well you have to consider multiple things. Not a single country excelled at all of them because they all prioritized different things based on needs.

1. Leadership/tactics/strategy: Germany by far, especially by pioneering blitzkrieg warfare. Their generals were also top notch like Manstein, Guderian, Rommel, etc.

2. Quantity of equipment: I don't remember off hand but I think it was France who had the biggest tank park in 1938. Didn't really matter because Germans outfoxed them with a smaller and more inferior force due to better tactics and strategy. Germany had biggest air force, Britain had the biggest navy but it was a WW1 navy.

3. Quantity of troops: Russia


Historically, Germany showed that none of this mattered because their strategies and tactics in 1938 made all these advantages by their adversaries meaningless. Germany showed in practice that they were the best military by 1938 or so

Rajaah said:

I think you're the first person I've seen argue that Japan was strongest (or was stronger than Germany for that matter). Good points though. A lot of people don't know how advanced Japan's navy actually was. They had some really impressive, modern ships.

Putting aside how badly it fared, Japan's Yamato really was the archetype of a battleship:

View attachment 485086



I have this big chip on my shoulder lately about "how much I've been lied to". Particularly by news media and movies, but I also suspect the history books are pretty far off given they're biased towards the winners. So much of what I learned turned out to later be grossly oversimplified or distorted in favor of a narrative. Nothing against my textbooks (I don't even remember what exactly they said), it's more that the bar for my expectations has gotten so low that it has burrowed into the Earth's crust.

Edit: We should probably have a WW2 thread, lot of interesting stuff here and it's in a thread for a movie

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Over the past few years I basically stopped reading any history from the last 300 years because the expectation for honesty is basically zero even about shit that happened in the 1700s

Burns said:

Once you accept that history (outside of the time and the place) is the subjective retelling by human actors, it's a bit easier to move forward in learning about it. Best you can get is multiple independent accounts to verify any information. I find archology and anthropology rather boring, but it's really great when there is supporting evidence, from those fields, for a historical event with multiple accounts.

I like thinking about Cesar as an example. We can verify much of his life, from various accounts from other contemporaries and archology, but (afaik) a decent amount of his "brilliance" in battle is only known because of the book he wrote about himself.

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That's true but a lot of history books in last 30 years have a noticeable SJW "white people bad" slant. But it often doesn't pop up until you're about 150 pages into the book and then you're like "god fucking dammit. It's one of those". And then it's a sunken cost dilemma

Kaines said:

Saying the USSR was not actively annexing land prior to WW2 is laughably false.

Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Parts of Finland
Besserabia

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Nobody said that

Ossoi said:

What planet are you on? Cause it sure as shit isn't this one.

Have you missed the build up of Polish forces to secure the border with Belarus due to the alleged threat from Wagner forces being exiled/stationed there?

Poland and NATO are infinitely more concerned with securing the Suwałki Gap between Kaliningrad and Belarus, than Poland annexing parts of the country it's taken more refugees from than anyone else




The US stopped co operating with Britain on nukes after ww2 via the Atomic Energy Act

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This belongs in a different thread at this point, but I could see Poland trying to seize part of western Ukraine if the opportunity presented itself, like if Ukraine's government and military collapsed or were about to collapse and most of it is about to fall to Russia, Poland may try to create a buffer zone. My point is that Poland seems opportunistic and I don't think they're looking out for anyone except Poland.

Araysar Thoughts?

Rajaah said:

This belongs in a different thread at this point, but I could see Poland trying to seize part of western Ukraine if the opportunity presented itself, like if Ukraine's government and military collapsed or were about to collapse and most of it is about to fall to Russia, Poland may try to create a buffer zone. My point is that Poland seems opportunistic and I don't think they're looking out for anyone except Poland.

Araysar Thoughts?

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That's the general consensus for reason of current Polish military buildup on the border. Only a retard would think that the Suwalki Gap needs protecting right now.

Kaines said:

Saying the USSR was not actively annexing land prior to WW2 is laughably false.

Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Parts of Finland
Besserabia

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They were just playing defense bro.

Ossoi said:

That's not what you said originally and lol at tagging in the Russian larp-bot

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What I said originally:

Poland's a big question mark in the current conflict because I'm not sure if they're going to A) Get directly involved in the conflict to make it an active NATO conflict due to being afraid they're next, or B) Jump in and slice off their own piece of western Ukraine while their armed forces are all over in the east.

What I said later:

I could see Poland trying to seize part of western Ukraine if the opportunity presented itself, like if Ukraine's government and military collapsed or were about to collapse and most of it is about to fall to Russia, Poland may try to create a buffer zone.

These ideas can co-exist pretty easily, it isn't like they clash. Poland might seize an opportunity to land-grab, especially if Ukraine's forces are all engaged elsewhere and the country is clearly about to lose. They've taken in a ton of Ukranian refugees AND part of Ukraine's territory used to be Poland's, so it isn't a stretch to say they might want that back even as an ethnic Ukrainian majority zone. I tagged in Araysar because he's the one I was responding to in the first place.

You have the manners of a goat

Ossoi said:

No,

Because A) makes it sound like Poland is a potential aggressor about to steal land from Ukraine whilst Ukraine can't defend itself. B) turns Poland from potential aggressor against Ukraine into pre-emptively defending itself against an imminently victorious Russia.

It was A) that is absurd.

Even more absurd if you ACTUALLY look at the map - specifically the aforementioned Suwałki gap in the NE corner of Poland which borders Kalingrad (Russian) and Belarus (Russian Ally). That bit of Polish land is what's separating Kalingrad from Belarus. So it makes no strategic or geographic sense for Poland to suddenly annex parts of Eastern Ukraine to the SE of Poland as a "buffer zone" when Russia can just march in through Belarus or Kalingrad

Just go and read up about it The most dangerous place on earth

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Its not about buffer zones, its about Poland wanting back its territories and historically Polish cities that it lost after WW2. That famous Ukrainian, UNESCO World Heritage city "Lviv" that Ukrainians are so proud of? Yeah, its been Ukrainian for a grand total of 32 years out of its almost 800 year history. There is a lot of other Western Ukrainian land that is historically Polish which USSR snipped away via Curzon Line and assigned to Ukrainian SSR.

Poles want it all back.

The Suwalki Gap is cold war archaic nonsense at this point. Last 18 months of Ukraine war demonstrated that big arrow offensives with hundreds of tanks rolling across the plains is an outdated tactic, impractical in the age of 24/7 ISR, pinpoint artillery at a moments notice and loitering munitions.