Quotulatiousness

May 7, 2021

The Nazi Invasion of Canada?! – WW2 – On the Homefront 009

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, Economics, History, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 6 May 2021

What would happen if Nazi Germany invaded Canada? You don’t need to imagine. In 1942, the government of Mackenzie King launched a propaganda effort that simulates Canada falling under Hitler’s yoke. Why? For the war economy of course!

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From the comments:

World War Two
1 day ago
As you can see in the video, the efforts to raise money to pay for the war were extremely high. But when we read about the stuff that was going on in Winnipeg on “If-Day”, we were really surprised — talk about “playing” war! Of course, this top-notch high-effort propaganda had quite the impact on the citizens of Winnipeg, because — let´s be honest — who wouldn´t be frightened by any kind of Nazi invasion? And they did not spare any effort to get the details right, too. What is your impression of If-Day? Have you heard of it before? Please let us know in the comments!

Cheers, Fiona

P.S. If you want to watch the short film starring Donald Duck which Anna mentions in the video, click right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNMrMFuk-bo&ab_channel=8thManDVD.com%E2%84%A2CartoonChannel

Scott Alexander reviews David Harvey’s A Brief History Of Neoliberalism

Filed under: Books, Economics, History, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

[Update: In the comments, “gunker” explains that this is another of Scott’s reader-contributed book reviews, not one of his own work. My apologies for the mistake.] After a quick rundown of the conventional explanation for the decline and fall of the comfortable post-WW2 US economy in the 1970s, Scott gives an overall appreciation of Harvey’s arguments:

… This treatment is almost the opposite of the way ABHoN describes events. Telling the story this way makes me feel like Jacques Derrida deconstructing some text to undermine the author and prove that they were arguing against themselves all along.

Harvey is an extreme conflict theorist. The story he wants to tell is the story of bad people destroying the paradise of embedded liberalism in order to line their own pockets and crush their opponents. At his best, he treats this as a thesis to be defended: embedded liberalism switched to neoliberalism not primarily because of sound economic policy, but because rich people forced the switch to “reassert class power”. At his worst, he forgets to argue the point, feeling it so deeply in his bones that it’s hard for him to believe anyone could really disagree. When he’s like this, he doesn’t analyze any of the economics too deeply; sure, rich people said something something economics, to justify their plot to immiserate the working classes, but we don’t believe them and we’re under no obligation to tease apart exactly what economic stuff they were talking about.

In these parts, ABHoN‘s modus operandi is to give a vague summary of what happened, then overload it with emotional language. Nobody in ABHoN ever cuts a budget, they savagely slash the budget, or cruelly decimate the budget, or otherwise [dramatic adverb] [dramatic verb] it. Nobody is ever against neoliberal reform — they bravely stand up to neoliberal reform, or valiantly resist neoliberal reform, or whatever. Nobody ever “makes” money, they “extract” it. So you read a superficial narrative of some historical event, with all the adverbs changed to more dramatic adverbs, and then a not-very-convincing discussion of why this was all about re-establishing plutocratic power at the end of it. This is basically an entire literary genre by now, and ABHoN fits squarely within it.

Harvey’s theses, framed uncharitably, are:

1. Embedded liberalism was great and completely sustainable. The global economic system collapsing in 1971 was probably just coincidence or something, and has no relevance to any debate about the relative merit of different economic paradigms.

2. Sure, some people say that the endless recession/stagflation/unemployment/bankruptcy/strikes of the 1970s were bad, but those people are would-be plutocrats trying to seize power and destroy the working class.

3. When cities, countries, etc, ran huge deficits and then couldn’t pay any of the money back, sometimes the banks that loaned them that money were against this. Sometimes they even asked those places to stop running huge deficits as a precondition for getting bailed out. This proves that bankers were plotting against the public and trying to form a dystopian plutocracy.

4. Since we have proven that neoliberalism is a sham with no advantages, we should switch back to embedded liberalism.

Let’s go through these one by one and see whether I’m being unfair.

Tank Chats #106 | Panzer IV | The Tank Museum

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The Tank Museum
Published 11 Sep 2020

Join The Tank Museum’s Curator David Willey as he discusses the Sd.Kfz 161, better known as Panzer IV: the most numerously produced tank by Germany during the Second World War.

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QotD: Battleship gunnery in WW2

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Military, USA, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Capital ships could also only defeat their opponents’ armour IF they could find them and hit them accurately. Which was hardly a given, as only the British – with the eight WWI 15″ guns on Warspite — and Germans — with the nine modern 11″[!] guns on Scharnhorst — actually hit any moving target at 26,000 yards or more. (Both in relatively clear conditions in daylight, and both well inside the theoretical 35,000-45,000 yard full range of most battleship guns.)

[Three years later, in foul weather at night during the Battle of North Cape, the Germans had their fears that British radar had advanced far beyond theirs in gunfire direction completely confirmed, when Scharnhorst was pounded to scrap by Duke of York and a few cruisers in a battle where even the British cruisers could engage and score hits at ranges that didn’t allow Scharnhorst to reply accurately.]

No other navy came even close to hitting anything actually moving at any speed at 26,000 yards (though West Virginia managed within about 15% of it with 22,800 yards using the latest radar at Surigao Strait in late ’44). Certainly not the radar-deficient Italians and Japanese.

At night, or in bad weather, that meant radar-efficient nations had an unsurpassable advantage, particularly for fast moving targets at sea like those hit by Warspite and Scharnhorst.

[Although one USN 16″ battleship peppered stationary French targets in a port at even longer ranges, some USN engagements — like Guadalcanal — were at Jutland distances, if not closer. (5,000-8,000 yards, even though the US ships had radar … Which would have been fine if the USN had been consciously doing a Matapan-style 3,500 yard ambush, but South Dakota‘s radar and other power went down to “electrical fault”, and she accidentally wandered within 5,000 yards and was battered at close range, “leaving the ship in Lee’s words ‘deaf, dumb, blind, and impotent'”. Fortunately Washington‘s working radar allowed her to sneak up on the Japanese and win the battle.) ]

At Surigao Straits those USN battleships with more modern radar — the late war rebuilds West Virginia, California and Tennessee — spotted the enemy at over 30,000 yards, and opened fire at 22,000 yards, actually getting some hits with the opening salvos! But some ships with less effective radar — Maryland (eight 16″) — had to wait for visual sightings of shell splashes before joining in, and Pennsylvania (twelve 14″) with her older Mark III radar, failed to spot the enemy at all.

How many and how big your guns are, or what their range is, doesn’t matter a damn if you never see your opponent!

[Though please note, in every battle of the war, the navy which has the choice — either through speed in daylight, or radar superiority at night or in heavy weather — always closed the range to their maximum advantage (if not to point-blank where possible) before engaging.]

So instead of endlessly debating the value of ten or twelve 14″ versus eight 15″ or 16″ or even nine 11″ or 16″; or of 20 degree versus 30 degree or 40 degree elevation; or of heavier slower shells versus lighter faster ones: I tend to accept that most heavy guns could penetrate most armour, and just wonder whether they could only hit anything in good light and good weather, or if they were completely blind in the wrong conditions?

Nigel Davies, “Real Battleships for WWII – Part I – defining a battleship”, rethinking history, 2021-01-23.

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