The Great Patriotic War: 1939-1943

Ah I see. You haven’t been precise previously.

Well, when you plan invasion of the Continent over the Channel you cannot simply land troops on the beaches and expect them to fight from the zero day. You need to establish supply lines, make room for accommodation, provide logistics and infrastructure required to support such a large army and then start actually fighting. They needed weeks if not months to provide adequate logistics. In addition to that, the servicemen involved were inexperienced soldiers who needed time to gain some experience to fight.

Meanwhile, Bagration was by design short and intense action, a cascade of deep operations to destroy enemy rear in a couple of weeks. That makes the difference.

To answer your question: in Normandy the real fighting has started on July 25th. Before that day Allies have been securing starting positions to start actually moving east, towards the objective: prewar Soviet/Polish border, perhaps even further.

 

Would anyone else like to see Tamino tell a D-Day veteran that said veteran did not participate in a "real" fight on D-Day...

Note to self...Real fighting is only done in tank country. Everything else is just play fighting.

 

Saying the real fighting started with Cobra seems well inane. Indeed if you looked at allied casualties per day I wouldn't be surprised if the post 25 July numbers were lower than the pre 25 July numbers for comparable time periods. With the collapse of the German lines their casualties may have been higher but does that mean the previous fighting wasn't "real"?

 

It only does if that is what is required to further one's "agenda."

 

This thread has gone off the rails, but from the last posts, I have to strongly disagree with you Tamino. As others have said before me, just because casualties and fighting intensified after July 25th, does not mean fighting did not take place before. My opinion on the matter is this, Bagration took pressure off of the Western Allies and their push through France, D-Day and the fighting in France took pressure off of Russia, the Soviets and Western Allies were unintentionally making life easier for one another.

 

No, no...This was intentional, by coordinating their efforts, it would keep the Germans off balance(much the same as the dual drives in the Pacific kept the Japanese off balance) It had been discussed earlier, but the first concrete exchange of information came with the Moscow Conference in late 1943.

The US Army Green Book "Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare 1943-1944" has a lot of information on the discussions and meettings between the West and the Soviets,
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct..._Pub_1-4.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0f6QMtquRbkK8idQQ-2IKI

 

I understand you guys: after being exposed to intense Cold War and Post Cold War propaganda you cannot do anything else but to deny Importance of Bagration for the mayor Western Allies victory. Denial was planned and built into anything related to the "Enemy".
But why the Hell Churchil asked Uncle Joe in Teheran to commence a mayor operation Simultaneously with the Overlord if it didn't support it. Why is this erased from the memory of the entire Western World whilst Warsaw Uprising has been blown out of any proportions? Appreciation is fine thing.
You forget one thing: I belong to the west, But I want to be honest and appreciate the role of the USSR.
Don't let propaganda cripple your judgement

 

I should not have used unintentionally, that was my mistake, I definitely know that Stalin had been calling for a Second Front against the Germans since 1941, and the Western Allies hoped considerable amounts of enemy forces would be bogged down in Eastern Europe making operations in Africa, Italy, and Western Europe easier, or at least less costly. I used the word unintentionally to point out the the disapproval the Western Allies and the Soviets had for each other, not agreeing with much of anything but to destroy Fascist Germany and Imperial Japan. They both wanted to help the other, to further help themselves if that makes any sense. My apologies for being unclear, and thank you Takao for pointing that out to me .

 

Btw the Goal of day+1 was Caen not the beach. So blaming the Allied for just being there sounds pretty unfriendly. Starting Bagration 22nd is not helping yourr friend it,s two weeks late. Count the days starting june 6th.

 

Except of course that's not what is happening. No one has said, at least from what I've seen, that Bagration didn't have a significant impact on the Western front. However it's also true that the military activities in the West had a significant impact on the East which you seem to be ignoring at best.

Is it? I don't think so. Indeed it's documented in the US Army source mentioned above. I also beleive if you look back through previous threads you will see that several of us (myself included) have mentioned that one of the reasons the allies prevailed and did so in the time frame they did is they actually acted like allies.

Has it been? I think that there are some clear lessons to be learned from it plus because of the controvery it's an interesting event to research.

Indeed.

It seems however you only want to appreciate the positive aspects of that role and ignore those that are less so.

You would be wise to take that to heart.

 

Has it? In some ways perhaps but it's actually become a discussion at this point rather that a soap box/propaganda vehicle/web site advertisement. Tamino and I often disagree on things but he's rational and will discuss things rather than just claim others are insulting him at the same time he's issuing insults to others. He has also made some valuable contributions to threads in the past. Those who are new here might want to look up some of his previous posts.

 

Physician, heal thyself.

The 70,959 American's who were battle casualties (incurred by an average of roughly just 14 divisions...i.e., over 5,000 casualties each) in those seven weeks would be surprised to hear they were not engaged in "real fighting". The similar numbers of Commonwealth battle casualties incurred would doubtless also find your comment equally bewildering and likely both, like me, would find it downright offensive.

 

Even if the thread has stayed mostly on topic, which is great, as soon as insults and bickering begins, that's where I start to lose interest.........that's my definition of going off the rails, and yes, I have seen some of Tamino's posts in the past, and I've never seen him like this at all, so I'm a little surprised.

 

No need to lose temper. Perhaps we have different views but there is still no need for argument. Let's try to talk and find out what has really hapened almost 3/4 of century ago. What I observe is that intellectual culture is detorriating over the past decade or two. There is almost total absence of interest to listen to each other, to judge things independently. People easily fall entrapped into well prepared "truths" sold under "here is all you need to know". Sweet rosy acceptable truth is so tempting. Unpreparednes for dialogue is seriously erroding western society. Just look arround you and yo will recognize what I am talking about. Watch carefully.

Let's try to dig into the matter, however bitter taste it may have.

Over the past few years I have abandoned almost everything I knew about not so distant history. I was amazed by the amount of fabricated truths and how carefully planted taboos have deep impact on our reasoning. The impact of media on average individuals is huge, it turns people into parrots, a herd.
I'll get back to talk to you later. Meanwhile, have a plaesant time.

PS: thanks LWD, I do indeed ppreciate your kind words.

 

I certainly meant no disrespect, and I'm sorry if my words conveyed that, I'm just telling it like it is, you are a good member Tamino, some of your comments have just seemed edgy to me lately. As for your comment on people today, yes, many people don't want to listen, and many feel that they are right no matter what, that is totally true, thankfully only a handful of such people show up on these forums every once in a while and throw off the forum, and cause stress and frustration for everyone. I agree that we should "dig into the matter" just civilly and politely, no matter how crazy ones answer might seem, just because something ridiculous is said, doesn't mean we should jump on them and tell them how stupid they are, I have done that myself, and it lowers my credibility and shows my immaturity. Lets's keep talking, this is a good discussion, lets do it with poise and respect.

 

I'm glad to hear that.
What I want to address in my several ongoing posts is what do these so different military operations had in common. It is late here and I am going to bed - a rather bussy weekend is in front of me.
Thanks for pleasant conversation to all of you.

 

Good to see you back lurking about Tamino!

I can agree that mass media and even much basic schooling does or tries to dumb down history which inevitably leads to errors and modern day myth making that become 'common knowledge' or 'conventional wisdom'. Fortunately like the two old guys in the Muppet Show baloney we here speak truth to power, with the occasional snarky wise crack.

 

Who lost their temper?

Yes, let's dig into the matter a bit, shall we? Instead of tossing out questionable statements like "in Normandy the real fighting has started on July 25th" and then slipping into feel good platitudes instead of addressing the issue.

You may want to go back again and reassess your current assumptions if your abandonment of previous knowledge has led you to the point where you believe and post ridiculous statements like "in Normandy the real fighting has started on July 25th". And try not to infer that just because you believed in "fabricated truths" (I think you meant fabricated fictions BTW) everyone else did too.

And I hope you have a jolly good time in the meantime as well.

 

Tamino go to the buried Allied soldiers in Normandy since D day and tell them they died for Nothing. I would not do that for dead Army soldiers for Bagration.You just Lost a BIG Something.

 

I don't think that is what he is saying...That the Allied soldiers died for nothing. What he seems to be saying, in a heavy-handed & baiting way, is that the Soviets were responsible for the victory in Normandy.

Which, when you think about it...Despite his claims that he is now more "enlightened" and free of Western propaganda thinking...He is now a slave, and a "parrot" of Soviet/Stalinst/Leninis/Marxistt propaganda.
D-Day and the truth about the Second World War


No, I am not a Parrot, just a Parrot Head.