World War Two
Published 4 Feb 2023The Allies begin a new operation in the Pacific this week: assaulting the Marshall Islands. They also make big attacks from their beachhead in Italy at Anzio, but these are called off after only a few days in the face of heavy enemy resistance. However, in the USSR there are several successes against the Axis, as they are pushed back both in the far north and the far south of the front, and still surrounded near Korsun.
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February 5, 2023
Leningrad: NO STEP BACK! – Week 232 – February 4, 1944
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February 4, 2023
Poland’s Descent into Civil War – War Against Humanity 097
World War Two
Published 2 Feb 2023Poland, occupied, abandoned or even threatened by her allies is left to fight her own war. A war that under the influence of internal and external forces looks more and more like a full blown civil war inside the world war.
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January 31, 2023
The Allied Flying Aces of World War Two – Documentary Special
World War Two
Published 30 Jan 2023Young, daring, and handsome, the Allied fighter aces of World War Two have captivated the public with their thrilling exploits. Join us as we take a look at the top scorers! Thanks to Curiosity Stream for sponsoring today’s video.
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January 29, 2023
Anzio Begins – Allies Already Pinned Down – Week 231 – January 28, 1944
World War Two
Published 28 Jan 2023Some big news is the Allies amphibious offensive to hit the Germans behind their lines at Anzio in Italy, some other big news is that after nearly two and a half years, the Soviets have broken the siege of Leningrad and their twin northern offensives keep pushing back the enemy. Yet more big news is that the Soviets have managed to surround and cut off over 50,000 Axis troops near Korsun. This is one big week of action!
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January 27, 2023
The return of the revenge of the bride of the Doomsday Clock
It’s amazing how much free publicity you can get by pulling out the hoary old Cold War propaganda tools, as Andrew Potter explains with the re-re-re-introduction of the Doomsday Clock bullshit:
Earlier this week, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of its Doomsday Clock ahead by ten seconds, to 90 seconds to midnight. This is the closest the clock has ever been to midnight, and, according to the press release announcing the move: “Never in the Doomsday Clock’s 76-year history have we been so close to global catastrophe.”
If you’re under, say, 40 years of age or so, that paragraph is probably pure gobbledygook, the written equivalent of the squawk of a 2400 baud modem going through its handshaking protocols. But for those of us in the ever-dwindling cohorts of Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers, hearing about the movement of the Doomsday Clock is to be jerked back into a time marked by both profound moral clarity and deep existential anxiety.
A bit of background on the Doomsday Clock might help. It was a creature of the Cold War, founded in 1947 by some of the scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project to raise public awareness of the threat of nuclear weapons. As the Bulletin puts it, the clock uses “the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet”. The decision to move or leave the minute hand of the Clock in place is made each year by the various trustees of the Bulletin, based on their evaluation of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe.
The clock was initially set at a nice and relaxed seven minutes to midnight, and over the following few decades it was moved closer in response to clear nuclear threats, things like ramped-up testing of new bombs, nuclear proliferation, or rising Cold War tensions. During periods of detente or after the signing of arms reductions treaties, the minute hand would retreat. In 1991, it was moved back to 17 minutes to midnight after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
For most of the second half of the 20th century, the Doomsday Clock was a healthy reminder of the most salient geopolitical fact of the era, which is that two superpowers were pointing thousands of nuclear weapons at one another.
But like many Cold War relics, the demise of the U.S.S.R. left it scrambling for a raison d’etre. In a bit of clever PR entrepreneurialism, the executive of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists turned the clock into a more generalized warning against war, climate change and other ecological or technological threats. The nadir of this shift in mission came on January 23rd 2020, when the Bulletin moved the clock’s hands to 100 seconds to midnight.
As the press release accompanying the ticking of the clock noted at the time, this put humanity “closer than ever” to catastrophe. Given that the clock had kept watch over our drive for self-destruction through the Suez Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the sabre-rattling Reagan administration, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, it makes one wonder just what happened in early 2020 to merit such a fearful move.
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January 26, 2023
Ukraine to receive Challenger II, M1 Abrams, and Leopard 2 tanks … both a solution and a new set of problems
In The Line, Matt Gurney outlines some of the benefits Ukraine will receive with this new transfusion of AFVs … and also the new and exacerbated set of practical problems that goes along with fielding so many different makes and models of tanks:
A British army Challenger Main Battle Tank, of 1 Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (1RRF), is shown returning to base after completing a firing mission as part of Exercise MedMan.
1RRF Battle group were based at the British Army Training Unit Suffield (BATUS) in Canada.
MOD photo by Mike Weston via Wikimedia Commons.
A column getting into all the details of why [the German government] were withholding said blessing would be several times longer than this one will be. Suffice it to say this is just the latest manifestation of Germany’s extreme discomfort with this war. Some of it relates to the lingering fallout of Germany’s blood-soaked history. But we would be naïve not to attribute at least some of the reluctance to Russia’s deep influence among some segments of the German ruling elite.
Germany has contributed to the defence of Ukraine, and it would be unfair to deny that. It would not be unfair to note that Germany has typically only done so later than the other allies, and under enormous pressure.
As part of the deals being announced, the United States will be sending several dozen of its M1 Abrams tanks, and Germany will send Leopards. Berlin will also allow other allies to send further Leopards. (Canada hasn’t committed to sending any of ours yet, but our few remaining Leopards are reported to be in poor shape, and are also all the way across an ocean, so we might not even be asked.) The British will send the Challengers. This gives Germany the ability to claim, with a reasonably straight face, that it has not chosen to escalate the conflict. Heavens, no! It’s simply moving in lockstep with its allies! As fig leaves go, it’s a pretty small and transparent one, but for the purposes of diplomacy and maintaining the appearance of allied solidarity, it’ll do.
And this brings us to the problem that the plan is exacerbating. A year ago, the Ukrainian military was largely armed and equipped along Russian lines — both militaries were, after all, descendants of the Soviet Red Army. Since then, much of its original equipment has been destroyed or lost, but this has generally been offset by an influx of Western weapons into the country as the allies empty their arsenals and get their production lines running again. This has allowed Ukraine to keep fighting, far more effectively than the Russians, among many others, expected. Despite huge losses of manpower, the Ukrainian military seems to actually have grown stronger as the war has gone on, thanks to the power of its new weapons.
Sending news is good news to that extent. It will make Ukraine stronger still. But it is also producing a situation where the Ukrainians are armed with an absurdly unwieldy mix of weapon systems. This is laying the groundwork for a future logistics disaster.
Any individual soldier can learn to use any specific piece of equipment. That’s just a matter of training and experience. Soldiers are smart. The longer they serve, the quicker they’ll get at picking up new pieces of equipment and kit. The challenge is more on the backend. The logistics of sustaining an arsenal of completely mixed weapon systems is a nightmare. Not only must Ukraine procure a huge variety of calibers of ammunition, it must also procure, sort, and then distribute a bewildering array of spare parts to keep all these weapons running. It’s not that this is impossible. The fact that Ukraine fights on is proof that it is not. But it adds tremendous cost and complexity, and requires a much larger effort to sustain than would be the case if Ukrainian units were equipped with standard weapons across comparable units.
The numbers of NATO tanks are initially small enough that only a few battalions can be re-equipped with the donated AFVs, but each different “brand” needs its own specialized support in the way of maintenace, repair, and re-supply. Ukraine is going to have to have at least a company-sized, fully trained maintenance unit for each battalion of NATO tanks and the logistics system will have to ensure that the different types of ammunition and ordinary wear-and-tear maintenance spares are delivered quickly enough to keep those battalions combat-ready. Some NATO nations with much better facilities sometimes struggle to do this for a single type of AFV, never mind for several different types.
Update: Can’t help but agree with Matt here.
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January 24, 2023
An alternative theory about German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s hesitation to allow Ukraine access to Leopard 2 tanks
I’ve been going on the assumption that the German government was terrified of Russian reaction if they allowed some Leopard 2 tanks to be donated to the Ukrainian forces, but eugyppius points out there’s another strong contending explanation:
Leopard 2A6M in Afghanistan
Years of peace in Europe, an ageing population and a corresponding focus on expensive social programmes have caused Germany to put its defence industry into near-hibernation. Only a little over 2,000 Leopard 2s have ever seen the light of day. Each one is a hand-built machine that takes two years to make. If Germany permits the export of the European supply of Leopard 2s to Ukraine, the Russians will grind them to nothing within months, and then Europe will have no tanks except the tanks that the Americans sell them:
Defence industry representatives, who wish to remain anonymous, report that the Americans are offering their own used tanks as replacements to [European] countries able to supply Leopard 2s to Ukraine, together with a long-term industrial partnership. Any country that accepts the American offer would be hard to win back for the German tank industry. Berlin’s influence in armament policy would decrease correspondingly.
Tanks are driven by men, who have to be trained in the operation of specific models. Their use moreover requires a whole supply chain of munitions and especially spare parts, which the Americans are eager to offer. The upshot is that, once Europe opts into American armour, it will never switch back, and Germany will be out of the game for good. Nor should we lend much credence to the idea that our very few tanks will make any difference either way for Ukraine’s prospects. The insistence that Scholz release the Leopard 2s is simply an attempt to edge Germany further out of the European arms industry and into a position of lesser political and economic influence in Europe, so that the United States can fill the gap.
Noah Carl, over at the Daily Sceptic, drew attention last week to remarks by the French intellectual Emmanuel Todd that “this war is about Germany“:
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Zbigniew Brzezinski called Eurasia the new “great chessboard” of world politics … The Russian nationalists and ideologues like Alexander Dugin indeed dream of Eurasia. It is on this “chessboard” that America must defend its supremacy – this is Brzezinski’s doctrine. In other words, it must prevent the rapprochement of Russia and China. The financial crisis of 2008 made it clear that with reunification Germany had become the leading power in Europe and thus also a rival of the United States. Until 1989, it had been a political dwarf. Now Berlin let it be known that it was willing to engage with the Russians. The fight against this rapprochement became a priority of American strategy. The United States had always made it clear that they wanted to torpedo [Nord Stream 2]. The expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe was not primarily directed against Russia, but against Germany. Germany, which had entrusted its security to America, became the Americans’ target [in the destruction of the pipeline]. I feel a great deal of sympathy for Germany. It suffers from this trauma of betrayal by its protective friend — who was also a liberator in 1945.
After the anti-Russian sanctions regime and its clear deindustrialising effects on the German economy, followed by the attack on the Baltic Nord Stream pipelines, and even smaller things, such as the high-profile anti-industry protests by the American-funded activist group Letzte Generation, I am willing to believe many conspiratorial things about the Ukraine war.
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January 21, 2023
When the SS Go Too Far – War Against Humanity 096
World War Two
Published 20 Jan 2023The internal conflict between Poland and the other United Nations Allies deepens as Churchill faces them with diplomatic defeat over Soviet land grab. In the Occupied Netherlands and Poland the Nazis continue their atrocities.
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January 19, 2023
The Partisan War Behind the Frontlines – WW2 Documentary Special
World War Two
Published 18 Jan 2023There is a second war raging on the Eastern Front. From the huge expanses of no man’s land behind the German lines, Moscow’s battle-hardened and well-armed partisan bands are waging a Rail War in support of Red Army offensives. But every successful mission brings down the wrath of the genocidal Axis war machine.
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January 15, 2023
Time to Liberate Leningrad! – Ep 229 – January 14, 1944
World War Two
Published 14 Jan 2023Three Soviet Fronts launch major offensives to try and finally free Leningrad, under siege for nearly two and a half years now. The Soviets are, in fact, making attacks along most of the Eastern Front. In the South Pacific, the Allies step up their aerial assault to wreck Rabaul’s air power, thus neutralizing it as a base.
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January 13, 2023
Is the French Resistance Defeated by 1944? – War Against Humanity 095
World War Two
Published 12 Jan 2023While the Soviet Union declared they will annex parts of Poland, the Western Allies fear that the broken French Resistance may ruin the plans for D-Day.
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January 10, 2023
Catherine the Great & the Volga Germans
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 16 Aug 2022
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January 8, 2023
“Russians 27 miles from Poland!” – Ep 228 – January 7, 1944
World War Two
Published 7 Jan 2023That’s what the headlines say as the Red Army continues its advance in Ukraine. There are also plans afoot for a northern offensive to end the siege of Leningrad. There are also plans afoot for an Allied amphibious attack in Italy at Anzio. Both of these are set to go off within a couple weeks, so January promises to be full of active conflict.
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January 7, 2023
January 6, 2023
Will Stalin Liberate or Occupy Poland? – War Against Humanity 094
World War Two
Published 5 Jan 2023The last week of 1943 is a busy one. Stalin deports the Kalmyk minority from Kalmykia, the escapees from Fort IX get away, and the US President moves to found the post-war UN.
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