Just an Observation

[cutlerd]

"Britain and the US were lucky that the Nazi's made the wrong strategic choice - leaving Britain free to be used later as the launching pad for the Allies 1944 campaign, and turning their elite army eastwards where eventually its back would be broken."

First of all, France missed so many opportunities (some along with Britain) to stop Germany BEFORE another war occured that it is laughable. I won't even mention the entire Czech debacle, but even after Poland was invaded, the German forces stationed on the western front were laughable. Germany's generals themselves thought it was utter suicide, as the force stationed against the French behind the Maginot Line was not enough to stop even the French. But the French decided to sit on their arses and wait for Germany to finish off Poland, ship all of its troops back west, and then attack on one front with the entire Wehrmacht.

As far as the assertion that Germany made a wrong choice and should have gone after Britain...balderdash! The invasion of Britain was pure propoganda and fantasy on the part of Hitler and the Nazis. The Germans did try to gather a motley collection of Rhine river barges to be towed by destroyers, but tests in the Atlantic Bay of Biscay (much less choppy than the Channel) showed the barges would swamp at a loss rate of over 35%. The Germans felt the ONLY chance they had was to cross at night to avoid the Royal Navy. However, tests with the barges at night showed that in addition to the 35% swamped, another 30% got lost and ended up at the wrong destination. In other words, even under better water conditions, the Germans' own tests showed 2/3rds of their invasion force would never arrive!

The fact that the Brits bombed the barges anyways and that Germany's economy was suffering from lack of river transport simply put the final nail in the coffin. Sea Lion (the invasion of Britain) was never going to happen.

And to our Finnish friend:

I have a LOT of experience debating with Finns and Scandinavians over the US, and many Americans will be surprised to know that many Scandinavians do see the US as just as bad as Russia. I guess that just proves that cold addles the brain.

But I guess it is easy for countries that SIDED with Germany (Finland) or didn't have the guts to join the war but still supplied the German war machine with iron (Sweden) or surrendered to Germany without a shot fired (Denmark) to cast stones at glass houses.

Devin

[Padma]

And for the films I do not understand you, What I mean is that it is illegal, to (the problem is that I do not know the word in english) take a film which is in another language than english, and erase the original soundtrack, and put the dialogues in english looking as it they spoke english (hell I can not remember how this process is called). Here in Spain we see all the American films translated to Spanish, without subtitles. You of course can watch the movie in its original language, but not "translated" to english. That is why the European films not made in english can not reach the US market of people that only speak english. If in Spain the American movies had the same obstacle, it would be a pain in the neck for most of the Spanish that do not speak english, and do not want to read the films, they will not be as popular as they are.

The English (American?) term is DUBBING. And no, it is not illegal. I am pretty sure it IS more EXPENSIVE than subtitles. After all, for subtitles, you just translate the dialog and print it on the screen. To dub, you translate the dialog, hire voice actors, record the voice-overs, etc.

Added to that cost is the common belief within the American media industry that Americans WON'T GO to a foreign movie, even if dubbed. I'm not saying that's true, just that that is the indutry perception. And it may BE true. Many Americans are ignorant about foreign cultures. I have seen some foreign films where the main character's motivation is completely alien to me:

Spouse: "Why is that character acting like that?"
Me: "Umm... Because he's French?"

And I pride myself on being a bit more informed than many. Heck, many Americans don't even understand ENGLISH movies, and we speak (almost) the same language!

[Moraelin]

Originally posted by cutlerd
First of all, France missed so many opportunities (some along with Britain) to stop Germany BEFORE another war occured that it is laughable. I won't even mention the entire Czech debacle, but even after Poland was invaded, the German forces stationed on the western front were laughable. Germany's generals themselves thought it was utter suicide, as the force stationed against the French behind the Maginot Line was not enough to stop even the French. But the French decided to sit on their arses and wait for Germany to finish off Poland, ship all of its troops back west, and then attack on one front with the entire Wehrmacht.

True. What makes it worse is that both France and Great Britain had a TREATY with Poland. Both had explicitly assured Poland that it would have to resist only for TWO WEEKS, while the French and English gather their forces to strike Germany from the west. Furthermore, they had urged Poland NOT to mobilize for war, as that could be construed as aggressive intentions. So efectively the Polish army fought that invasion with only a third of its army.

So what I'm saying is: that wasn't just missing an opportunity, it was darn well betraying an ally.

Just a thought, maybe that's why the French didn't wait for an English re-deployment in the south. They had already seen a promise like that being broken.

[laurentius]

Originally posted by cutlerd

"And to our Finnish friend:

I have a LOT of experience debating with Finns and Scandinavians over the US, and many Americans will be surprised to know that many Scandinavians do see the US as just as bad as Russia. I guess that just proves that cold addles the brain.

But I guess it is easy for countries that SIDED with Germany (Finland) or didn't have the guts to join the war but still supplied the German war machine with iron (Sweden) or surrendered to Germany without a shot fired (Denmark) to cast stones at glass houses.

Devin

The is just some things I want to say to you. First, things aren't as simple as they might seem to you as an average american. Brains can be addled in many ways my average american friend. Most efficient ways are notably smelling glue, voting for Dan Quale, watching WWF and IRCing. I dont know which you prefer, but I would guess second from the left.

What comes to WW2, hmm where to begin. Finland had two wars, the first was the Winter war which started 1939 with an attack by soviet bombers. Before the attack Soviet foreign minister Molotov and Germanys foreign minister Ribbentrop had made some intresting plans for the future.
These included the secret supplementary protocol in which germans gave Finland and the Baltic to the soviets for poland ,norway etc. So relations between Finland and Germany we not too friendly. Finland fought it's war on it's own losing 20% of it's area and the biggest province, Carelia. Althought Finland was not occupied and maintained it's sovereignity. There was absolutely no one to help us. Allmighty USA didn't gave a damn and Great Britain kept silent thereby accepting what was going on. Some 2000 swedes came to help finns on their own unassisted by their government.

The second war was started 1941, this time it was about retaliation and regainance what was lost year ago. As USA and GB refused to sell weapons to us, we had to turn to the Germans. President Ryti made deal with Hitler to grant passage for the wehrmacht to attack the Soviet positions from finnish soil. For guns, planes, bombers, tanks, artillery and for food. Please let me underline that the reason was not any sympathy for finns or for germans. It was a pure strategic manouver, to get weaponry. As you know national socialist parties as well as communist party had been banned in Finland since early 1930'ties. Later on after the peace had been achieved finns fought against the germans in Lapland after they refused to leave the country. They were pulled back to the Norway. Thats about SIDING with Nazis.

I cant really speak for swedes, norvegians of danes. But as you well know my dear average american Denmark is extremely difficult to defend due to the landscape. What comes to Sweden their motives can be questioned. IMO it was very confortable to have Finland between them and the USSR, while sametime selling iron to the germans in exhange for nazi-gold, taken from the jews.

Look, if you want to turn this thread into flamewar so be it. Just count me out of it for now on. If you are man enough to discuss about it please contact me via PM.

PS. Finland never took a cent of your Marshall-help, and oooh what a poor third world country are today!

[Arrian]

I was just thinking... I'm amazed this thread is still open. It ceased to have anything to do with Civ III long ago (if it ever did).

Everyone just take it easy, ok? We can debate who's good and who's bad until the cows come home (forever, for those who have never heard that expression) and nobody will "win" the debate. Now, clearly there is merit in talking about perceptions of Americans and Fins and Brits, etc., but perhaps that's a discussion for another time and place?

As for WWII, having majored in history in college (university), and having taken many courses which related to that particular war, I think many people tend to oversimplify it. There is an awful lot to know about WWII, and it takes some time to learn it all (I don't claim to have done this). Accordingly, there are gaps in everyone's knowledge. Toss in some common misconceptions, some cultural bias, and the natural tendency to defend your own country, and what you get is a Fin and an American slugging it out on a game forum.

I'll stop preaching now, as I doubt it will do any good.

-Arrian

p.s. One of these days, I will resist the temptation of posting in these threads at all...

[David Weldon]

Ok, it was probably pretty obvious but the humour piece I quoted was from an online source. I couldn't get a link or a reference, though, it seemed to be a mailing list type thingy...

As for Bush v. Clinton, please don't make me retch. Bush is using real force to really put an end to a real threat. It may end up being more than that (i.e. if we linger and keep bases as we did in Saudi), but for now we don't know. I personally pray that we get out as soon as we're done.

Clinton turned to terroristic bombing of tents and medicine factories because he wanted to distract the US public from personal scandal. He should have acted more slowly, with proper intelligence, and with overwhelming force. Instead he killed 100s of thousands of innocent africans (indirectly) because of bad PR at home. Talk about an evil, evil man. (btw, he then blocked all UN attempts to investigate the actual death toll in africa because he didn't want the US to "look bad". Bastard.)

Oh, and just for the record it's not true that the U.S. has never recognized the world court, we purposely chose to view it as "illegitimate" after they found us guilty (and rightly so) of using pervasive terroristic methods in multiple south american countries throughout the '80s.

We don't mind world-wide control, as long as we're the ones doing the controlling. I suspect that most governments feel the same way, it's just that ours is in a position to actually act that way and get away with it (read: overwhelming military and economic strength).

I don't believe, however, that individual actions should define a nation. Overall it can be shown that the U.S. is more friendly and provides more support to other nations (even those it was previously at war with) than any other nation in history. Lots of that is no doubt an attempt to influence those nations, but the fact remains that a _lot_ of international aid has been given.

I love the US. I despise certain things we get away with because our general public is pacified by mainstream media. I probably feel like a lot of older Germans in that regard.

But hey, we're supposed to be bashing the French! Ummm, hairy underarms! Haha!