[HN Gopher] Panjandrum: The 'giant firework' built to break Hitl...
___________________________________________________________________
Panjandrum: The 'giant firework' built to break Hitler's Atlantic
Wall
Author : rmason
Score : 135 points
Date : 2025-06-05 02:21 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| the__alchemist wrote:
| _Panjandrum_ : Fraa Orolo's pejorative term for a high-ranking
| official of the Saecular Power.
| lelandfe wrote:
| Stephenson enjoys the word. He also used it in _Cryptonomicon_.
| I keep a running list of new words I encounter and share them
| online occasionally. Someone once recognized I was reading
| _Cryptonomicon_ just from a string of those new words, lol.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| If you enjoy encountering new words and phrases such as
| 'theurgic vermin' then you might like China Mieville's
| _Kraken_. I had to read it with a copy of the OED and
| Wikipedia to get the most from it.
| almostkindatech wrote:
| Or read anything by Will Self
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I had a pretty good list for Polostan
| ben_ja_min wrote:
| Thank you for this. I was going nuts trying to figure out where
| I had read this before. Peace and love! For the uninitiated,
| the Neil Stephenson novel, "Anathem", is brilliant and
| extremely entertaining.
| 6LLvveMx2koXfwn wrote:
| And if you enjoyed that you'd possibly enjoy The Glass Bead
| Game
| daverol wrote:
| I always preferred the thinking behind the 'Conundrum' used in
| Operation Pluto. No big bangs but excellent logistics - see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pluto
| KineticLensman wrote:
| There's a recreation of a Panjandrum in the iconic UK WW2-set
| comedy 'Dad's Army' [0] which captures the essential nuttiness of
| the real device
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_and_Round_Went_the_Great...
| kjellsbells wrote:
| As the ww2 generation passes on, it's easy to forget the degree
| of utter, total mobilization that went on in the British Isles
| during the war. I'm always struck by how easy it is to hike into
| some remote part of the UK and learn that the parish school was a
| training ground for Italian resistance fighters or that some park
| in remote scotland was where they trained commandos. Perhaps its
| because the country is quite small, and they had to use every
| inch, but it always seems remarkable.
|
| I think the notion of odd, but brilliant, boffin is deeply
| embedded in British culture. Or was, until at least the 2000s.
| The Great Egg Race on TV being a fine example.
| nocoiner wrote:
| You would probably enjoy the book "Backroom Boys" by Francis
| Spufford.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| What i find even more remarkable is how every town, village,
| school and institution have memorials for those who lost their
| lives in the Great War. Usually there is another plaque
| attached in memory of WW2. It's hard to imagine the scale of
| deaths. The tragedy is how little was accomplished by the
| sacrifices of ww1. It had none of the moral clarity of ww2 nor
| did most of the deaths achieve any strategic purpose.
|
| On the other hand i knew an old scientist who had quite a few
| interesting and amusing stories to share about his efforts in
| WW2. One of them was about his attempts to perfect a formala.
| Several factories exploded before they succeeded.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| It's worth pointing out explicitly that WW2 didn't have the
| moral clarity that it does today either. The vast majority of
| the western world was perfectly content to let Hitler run
| Europe and Japan to run Asia.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| What do you define as the vast majority of the western
| world? Just the US?
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| Literally not one country initiated combat against Nazi
| Germany before being attacked itself.
|
| Churchill stands virtually alone as one with moral
| clarity on the Nazis.
|
| USSR allied with them. France was fine seeing everyone
| else get rolled. Poland signed a nonaggression pact. The
| British parliament were generally happy to let Hitler
| have his way.
|
| How about instead, you tell me who you think went out of
| their way to combat Nazism?
| abraae wrote:
| > Literally not one country initiated combat against Nazi
| Germany before being attacked itself.
|
| Apart from many of the Commonwealth countries?
| lipowitz wrote:
| The UK could have declared war on Mars and the
| Commonwealth would follow, so you are only talking about
| Churchill.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Churchill became PM in May 1940, 8 months after the UK
| declared war on Germany.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| The interim period being known as "The Phoney War" for
| being... well... phoney.
|
| A technical satisfaction of their obligations to Poland
| and no more.
| yread wrote:
| British government even signed a british german naval
| friendship on the eve of Munich agreement. Moral clarity
| haha
| lostlogin wrote:
| How else were they going to get peace in our time?
| arethuza wrote:
| Nitpick: It was "peace _for_ our time "
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time
| flir wrote:
| Meanwhile, back home... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bri
| tish_rearmament_before_Worl...
| ta1243 wrote:
| > Literally not one country initiated combat against Nazi
| Germany before being attacked itself.
|
| The UK and France both declared war at the same time
| after Germany invaded Poland.
|
| I think the UK fired the first bullets -- or rather depth
| charges, on Sep 3rd. That resulted in damage and no
| deaths. A few hours later Germany attacked a UK passenger
| liner and killed over 100 civilians - not just Brits but
| also Canadians and Americans.
|
| The day later the RAF bombed a German naval port, causing
| little damage, but again attacks.
|
| France had the Saar offensive within days, so France
| fired the first shots between France and Germany. Nazi
| invasion of the Benelux and France was inevitable, but
| technically France attacked Germany before Germany
| attacked France.
|
| > The British parliament were generally happy to let
| Hitler have his way.
|
| Britain was mobilising throughout the late 30s. Declaring
| war at Munich could well have resulted in a British loss
| - the RAF wasn't really capable of running the Battle of
| Britain, it barely survived even with the extra year of
| preparation. On the other hand Nazis were less prepared
| too. Who knows what that would have done - perhaps a coup
| against Hitler would have succeeded. On the other hand
| perhaps there would have been no support for war -
| leading to a resignation of Chamberlain, Halifax becoming
| PM who was even more stronger into appeasement, and a
| swift truce hammered out, with no the UK abandoning
| Poland.
|
| Churchill was of course more wary of Hitler, but
| Chamberlain is the one who declared war.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| This is pretty much a complete and comprehensive
| description of what's now called the Phoney War for being
| pretty much nonexistent beyond the bare minimum required
| to "check the box" for England and France's "defense" of
| Poland (which, to be clear, waiting for your ally to be
| directly attacked == not doing anything until you are
| attacked)
|
| Not that I think any of this is indefensible, to be
| clear, but it is obvious _in the moral clarity of today_
| that offensive action against Nazi Germany would have
| been justified. The reason no one engaged in it was
| because _it wasn 't morally clear_ at the time.
| ta1243 wrote:
| I don't understand when you consider the first attack by
| Germany on the UK? The invasion of Poland?
|
| Even if you ignore early engagements in September 1939,
| from April the UK was involved in fighting in Norway -
| losing over 4000 troops in the process.
|
| The war wasn't waged particularly well by France or the
| UK in 39/40, being too late to be involved in Finland and
| failing to successfully defend Norway, but it was
| certainly waged in Norway. The failures led to the fall
| of both Daladier and Chamberlain, but thousands of
| British troops had been killed before Churchill became
| Prime Minister.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| Yes I would say "waiting until I'm legally obligated to
| act, and even then doing such a minuscule job of it that
| it's called 'The Phoney War'" are clear evidence of a
| _lack of moral clarity._
|
| It seems like you believe I'm arguing that no military
| action was underway prior to Churchill. I'm not. I'm
| arguing that (effectively) no one had "moral clarity"
| about the Third Reich other than Churchill.
| dh2022 wrote:
| Fighting in Norway and on the high seas (see sinking of
| Graf Spee) does not look like phoney war...
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| Compared to what was necessary and warranted, it clearly
| was.
| allturtles wrote:
| I don't think it has anything to do with moral clarity.
| The western allies didn't hesitate to attack because they
| weren't sure whether Hitler was such a bad guy after all.
| They feared another repetition of wwi and worse, because
| the increased effectiveness of aerial bombing would bring
| the horrors of the trenches to the home front. This fear
| drove all of the capitulations to Hitler by France and
| the UK in the 1930s, and continued as late as 1944, when
| much of the British leadership still feared to land
| armies in the killing fields of northwest Europe.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| If you believe that today WW2 was "morally clear," what
| you are saying is that it was clearly worth overcoming
| all of those risks and that fear (understandable as it
| is).
|
| They did not do that and instead were spurred into action
| _only_ when they themselves were attacked, ergo obviously
| it was not morally clear at the time.
| allturtles wrote:
| Okay, well I disagree with your dimensional analysis. To
| me moral clarity is being confident about who is in the
| right and who is in the wrong. Taking action to do
| something about it is another matter. To me it's morally
| clear that Ukraine is in the right in the current war,
| but I have taken no personal risks to put my life on the
| line for that belief.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| Fair point!
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| To an extent you are right. ww1 made much more sense at the
| time then it does today. And it wasn't as clear during ww2
| that it was in fact the greatest conflict of good vs evil
| ever.
|
| The extent of the German and Japanese atrocities only
| became clear after the war and they were so great that even
| the Soviet Union were on the side of the angels.
|
| I wouldn't say they were perfectly content. It was more
| that they were cowardly and apathetic.
| kjellsbells wrote:
| WWI makes no sense (or perhaps, we understand it better)
| because over a hundred years have passed, and the highly
| emotive propaganda of the time no longer persuades us. If
| you were listening to your pastor thundering in the
| village church about (say) nurses in Belgium in 1914 you
| might not have had the emotional distance, or education
| in cold politics, to recognise that what was really going
| on was the death throes of the Austro-Hungarian empire
| and the fight for hegemony in the empires that remained.
| (Not to diminish the crimes in Belgium, btw, but they
| were part of a bigger picture that would have been hard
| to read in 1914.)
| jltsiren wrote:
| There was moral clarity in West and South Europe. But if you
| happened to be in East Europe, WW2 was primarily a war
| between nazism and communism. Everyone else was trying to
| find the least bad option, which usually meant choosing a
| side and switching it at least once.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| I don't know if the eastern european countries besides
| maybe ussr count. Many many polish, ukrainian and
| lithuanians enthusiastically helped the germans in carrying
| out the holocaust.
| oddmiral wrote:
| Many jews were communists. Communists killed millions in
| those countries.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| I think you got your causalities wrong there
| oddmiral wrote:
| On 02.04.2008, Russian State Duma confirmed that 7
| million (adults and unknown number of children) died
| because of artificial starvation in 1932-1934
| (Holodomor). Majority of them are Ukrainians. However,
| Russian Federation refuses to confirm the starvation and
| FSB agents jail or kill everybody who spreads information
| about Holodomor. If you are from RF - beware.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Causalities, not casualties. :)
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Not even close so don't try. There were some powerful
| positions in the ussr occupied by jews. I'm not sure what
| role they had in the purges etc. Stalin was definitely
| not a great lover of jews.
|
| On the other hand in the countries i mentioned above many
| locals participated in a genocide and murdered their
| neighbors with their bare hands.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > There was moral clarity in West and South Europe
|
| Indeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_declaration_o
| f_war_on_.... Both Britain and France declared war on
| Germany because they made guarantees to Poland about it.
|
| > ... in the event of any action which clearly threatened
| Polish independence, and which the Polish Government
| accordingly considered it vital to resist with their
| national forces, His Majesty's Government would feel
| themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all
| support in their power.
|
| That is unambiguous and clear. They kept their word.
|
| It is tragic in the end that after the war they handed
| Poland over to Stalin. Poland still had its independence
| threatened but after having supplied and helped Stalin all
| that time, it was awkward having to declare war against him
| as well.
| hackandthink wrote:
| The political situation in the 1930s was thoroughly
| messed up. Britain and France may have had mainly good
| intentions, but their policies did not prevent the
| disasters.
|
| Great Britain should have made a pact with the Soviet
| Union against Hitler much earlier.
|
| Poland was in an extremely difficult situation. But the
| decision to invade Czechoslovakia with the Germans was
| certainly not a good idea.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_betrayal
| rdtsc wrote:
| > Britain and France may have had mainly good intentions,
| but their policies did not prevent the disasters.
|
| They had an absolute lack of appetite for fighting since
| the WWI was not long ago. I don't know if the Germans
| were smart enough to understand that and fully took
| advantage of it or were just lucky. For the Germans it
| worked with Czechoslovakia so they figured it would work
| with Poland as well.
|
| Stalin I think is more interesting. He was prepared to
| "defend" the Czechs as well. He just needed permission to
| take his armies across Poland and Romania. He quickly
| switched sides after the agreement and signed the Soviet-
| German agreement.
|
| Not too long ago I also learned about the secret military
| cooperation between the Soviets and the Germans https://e
| n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany%E2%80%93Soviet_Union_r....
| The German air force was training its pilots in the
| Soviet Union:
|
| > In 1925, a flying school was established near Lipetsk
| (Lipetsk fighter-pilot school) to train the first pilots
| for the future Luftwaffe
|
| Reading that it's like reading some alternative universe
| fan-fiction. So that makes Stalin's position interesting.
| He was supposed to be allied with the French and the
| British officially but non-officially was assisting the
| Germans.
| yread wrote:
| > they kept their word
|
| After not upholding the 1924 pact (France) with
| Czechoslovakia
| lostlogin wrote:
| That 'defence' of Poland mainly consisted of doing
| nothing, in the Phoney War.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War
| rdtsc wrote:
| That's fair. It sort of like on "paper" they fulfilled
| their obligation, shot a few rounds and quickly ran away.
| And like we mentioned even in the end they gave Poland
| over to Stalin. So they won the war, but officially the
| reason they got into it was not redressed. Not until the
| Soviet Union fell, years later.
| rdtsc wrote:
| That's true. Abandoning the Czechs was embarrassing. That
| was probably a factor in then choosing to at least do the
| right thing for Poland. Otherwise it started to look
| really embarrassing for them: here are these great powers
| and they do not keep their word. That looked very weak.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| The lesson from history is that appeasing tyrants only
| encourages them. And we would be well to remember it.
| inkyoto wrote:
| > But if you happened to be in East Europe, WW2 was
| primarily a war between nazism and communism.
|
| WWII in Eastern Europe was a war for the survival of the
| Slavic peoples whom the Nazis declared to be the
| Untermensch[0] (Belorussians, Czechs, Poles, Russians,
| Serbs, Ukrainians - _all_ of them) and were determined to
| fully exterminate them all following the extermination of
| the Jews and the Roma people.
|
| The scale of extermination of the Slavs went far beyond the
| mass murdering of them in concentration camps, and included
| rounding up villages and burning them along with the
| villagers down with the use of flamethrowers, with no
| remorse because the Nazis considered the Slavs sub-
| humans[1][2][3][4].
|
| Neither Czechoslovakia, nor Poland, nor the Kingdom of
| Yugoslavia had communism of any shape or flavour.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untermensch
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khatyn_massacre
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice_massacre
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michni%C3%B3w_massacre
|
| [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Centre_Lipa_Reme
| mbers...
| jltsiren wrote:
| How do Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland
| fit in that picture?
|
| WW2 was a complex war. The big picture for the European
| part was that the two main powers divided Europe in their
| spheres of influence, fully intending to fight each other
| for overall supremacy after a while. Some countries
| joined their designated side voluntarily, some joined
| under a threat of invasion, and most of the rest were
| invaded. The ones I listed were the ones where the USSR
| was the initial aggressor.
| inkyoto wrote:
| Instead of shifting the goalposts, please do yourself a
| favour and read up on the Untermenschen and the
| convoluted hierarchy of the sub-humans in the Nazi racial
| ideology. As an example, since the Nazis harboured
| particular hatred towards the Poles, the Poles were at
| the very bottom of the hierarchy, and only complete
| obliteration of the Polish ethnicity was deemed
| acceptable.
|
| One joins an alliance of convenience, sometimes in very
| unfavourable circumstances, to avoid the worst - the
| demise of one's own people and to guarantee their
| survival. Making a deal with the devil is a well-known
| adage that aptly describes such an unfortunate event.
|
| Nazis considered the Finns (and the Estonians by
| extension) to be racially pure, with Latvians and
| Lithuanians being somewhere in between either redeemable
| or tolerable (frankly, I can't recall the exact details).
|
| > WW2 was a complex war.
|
| WWII was no more complex than the WWI, and it had a
| single, overarching objective - the repartitioning of the
| world. The main difference between the two was that the
| WWII was infused with a vile racial ideology, used to
| justify the pursuit of Lebensraum and the total
| annihilation of peoples whom the Nazi Party targeted with
| hatred, based on their crackpot so-called racial studies.
| markvdb wrote:
| A clear view of WW II in all its complexity is important.
| The current tense geopolitical context makes that even
| more so. Have you noticed how the current head war
| criminal in Moscow is glorifying his WW II predecessor?
| oddmiral wrote:
| Moreover, Germans decided that Slavs are untermensch
| because of Holodomor henocide of Ukrainians ([Little]
| Russians) by Russians (Great Russians). The confusion
| between [Little] Russians (now Ukrainians) and Great
| Russians (now Russians) caused Germans to think that
| Russians performed genocide of their own nation, killed
| millions of their own mothers and children, which is
| biggest sin in Germany (and many other nations).
| hackandthink wrote:
| This is Nazi talk.
|
| That was the actual Nazi plan:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_Plan
|
| The differentiation between Ukraine and Russia is
| interesting.
|
| Ukrainian nationalists had also joined the Nazis.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Ukrainian nationalists had also joined the Nazis.
|
| This occurred in all occupied territories didn't it?
| France, Holland, Belgium etc.
|
| It also occurred in some that weren't occupied. Spain for
| example, and don't look too hard at the British Royal
| Family (for this reason and various others).
| defrost wrote:
| Also in North America, eg:
| https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/german-
| ame...
|
| As with Ukraine a few Nazi's didn't represent the country
| nor even come close to a majority.
| oddmiral wrote:
| Few Ukrainians joined Nazi, few Jews joined Nazi, whole 3
| million Russian Army joined Nazi. :-/
| hackandthink wrote:
| This is a hornet nest.
|
| I once read this from Alain Badiou:
|
| "This separatism at certain moments reached extremes that
| no one could forget, particularly not the Russian people,
| knowing that the vast mass of the Nazi-armed and
| organised armies coming from Russian territory were
| Ukrainian. The Vlasov army was a Ukrainian army. Today we
| can even read the history of Ukrainians turning entire
| villages to blood and fire, including French ones. A good
| part of the repression of the maquis in central France
| was carried out by Ukrainians. "
|
| Wikimedia presents Vaslov's army as Russian:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Liberation_Army
|
| But Wikipedia about Vlasov (SS Division here):
|
| "He (Himmler) oversaw the creation of the SS-Volunteer
| Division "Galicia" in October 1943 from Ukrainian
| volunteers, but that same month he said that Vlasov made
| him "genuinely anxious."
|
| https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/1569-a-present-
| default...
| https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/1569-a-present-
| default...
|
| --- Badiou is a strange guy but I trust him.
|
| In general, I have the impression that the historiography
| of the Nazi collobaration in Central Europe has been
| politically influenced in recent years.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Vlasov
| euroderf wrote:
| The relevant film here is "Come and See" (USSR, 1985).
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| > war for the survival of the Slavic peoples
|
| That simplifies the situation a bit too much. When Soviet
| Union conquered half of Poland, which side were the
| Slavs, and which side were the Slavs?
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| Various infantry bunkers laying about are also a reminder, but
| what really gets me are the bonkers last-ditch defensive
| weapons you can still find in places, like preset positions for
| flame fougasse batteries:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_fougasse
|
| They speak to the particular combination of desperation,
| urgency, and ingenuity found in the UK at that time.
| prox wrote:
| I think we are seeing similar tactics and mobilization in
| Ukraine. They had to invent and be practical on the
| battlefield without the overwhelming numbers of the Russian
| empire.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| IIRC Churchill was prepared to use chemical weapons as well.
| He wasn't messing around.
| euroderf wrote:
| The Germans were prepared to also. It would have been
| horrible on both sides.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| The Germans didn't use chemical weapons, even when
| Germany was invaded.
| euroderf wrote:
| To be specific, I meant that they were prepared to use
| them in the invasion of Britain.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I don't think I've seen anything about that. Do you have
| any links?
| euroderf wrote:
| 'Fraid not. I picked it up from many years of reading
| everything about Seelowe that I could get my hands on.
| mhh__ wrote:
| > As the ww2 generation passes on,
|
| I was at a picnic recently that happened to be on VE day, it
| really struck me that now London is only about 35% or so
| English as the ww2 generation would've known it, almost no one
| has a particularly good reason to bother paying attention. I'm
| sure I was the only person there who knows who Barnes Wallis
| was.
|
| And yes I miss the boffins. They do still sort of exist but
| that type of mind has been strangled by the last few decades
| drive towards left-brained processes where everything basically
| has to be nailed down before the work actually starts.
|
| That latter point is one reason why we're struggling so much -
| we owe a great debt to the generations who built all the
| infrastructure and housing. We didn't pay it off, we now can't
| really do anything at scale other than extract rent. The
| victorians were building a HS2 every few years.
| jameshart wrote:
| Not sure the WW2 generation would be all too comfortable with
| you looking around and making a snap judgement based solely
| on appearances that some of the people around you have a
| lesser right to call themselves 'English' than you because
| you assume none of them know who Barnes Wallace is.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I'm not assuming, I asked; they wouldn't _call_ themselves
| english anyway. Almost no one does anymore anyway, I don
| 't.
| triceratops wrote:
| > London is only about 35% or so English
|
| It also generates a quarter of the UK's GDP, so there's that.
| mhh__ wrote:
| How else do you think we pay for (say) about half of all
| social housing in central London to go to those born
| overseas
|
| Or even just the bizarre notion of having best part of half
| of zone 1 be social in the first place.
| triceratops wrote:
| If there's so much social housing in London and so many
| people born overseas living in London, they can hardly
| help living in the social housing. Not sure that's a good
| or bad thing.
| ithkuil wrote:
| Perhaps that's why the UK has so much more sympathy for Ukraine
| than the US.
|
| Yes the US fought in WWII with a lot of human investment, the
| amount of direct threats to American soil was much smaller than
| the UK and the memories of the war are those of the fights in
| the jungles and not of American children fleeing bombs in major
| cities
| pjc50 wrote:
| It helps. I think Boris Johnson was very happy to play the
| Churchill role.
|
| The more interesting question is always why America suddenly
| forgot all its usual rhetoric of freedom, democracy, and
| liberating random countries (sometimes against their will) in
| this particular case, and whether it has anything to do with
| propaganda and bribery operations.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| IDK, maybe it has something to do with spending 20yr
| replacing the Taliban with the Taliban.
|
| You do not get a blank check to engage in nation building
| boondoggles until a "good one" comes along.
| ithkuil wrote:
| That can totally explain the lack of desire to get
| involved.
|
| That doesn't explain the victim blaming though.
|
| Zelenski is depicted as a war criminal because he refused
| to capitulate to a stronger enemy.
|
| War is crazy and brutal and engaging in one is going to
| get people killed. But I don't understand how we can
| expect some other country to just give up and yet we
| don't expect ourselves to do the same when somebody
| attacks us.
|
| Hence my only explanation is that no living person in
| America truly knows how it feels to be invaded.
| rainworld wrote:
| >some other country to just give up
|
| That _some other country_ gets over 55% of its budget
| from the West and almost all its materiel. Total direct
| "aid" over 320 billion so far. Total costs to the West
| much higher still.
|
| And the result for Ukraine is more territory lost, more
| destruction, and hundreds of thousands of casualties. No
| one would and could stop them from continuing the war on
| their own but imagine what that would look like.
|
| And the result for the West is a stronger, hostile Russia
| with deepening ties to China, North Korea etc. Strategic
| failure.
|
| >Zelenski is depicted as a war criminal
|
| No. What we saw was a noisy attempt by the US to salvage
| its strategic failure in Ukraine/Russia. Russians weren't
| fooled. It failed.
| twixfel wrote:
| Eh, money well spent tbh. Alternative, letting Russia
| just win, is worse. Give no quarter to fascism. We learnt
| that in the 30s.
|
| PS russia isn't stronger lol.
| rainworld wrote:
| Yes, bleedingly obvious that you people do not care about
| Ukraine and Ukrainians at all. You just hate Russia.
| ithkuil wrote:
| I personally don't care about ukraine nor ukrainians; I
| have no stake in the game.
|
| But I think all humans are fundamentally the same and
| when I see a bunch of humans fighting for their freedom I
| can _understand_ them. I _understand_ their motivations.
|
| I also _understand_ the imperialistic motivations. I
| _understand_ russian need for status and pride and their
| relationship with their grandiose past. I _understand_
| all these emotions. All these emotions are exploited by
| various interests, sure, but nevertheless without those
| emotions of the masses war couldn 't happen.
|
| What irks me is when people do not want to put themselves
| in the clothes of somebody else at all, an d just
| conclude that one group of people is not entitled to have
| a given emotion. So Ukraine is not entitled to defend
| themselves because <insert_some_rational_reason> but
| russia is entitled to defend their separatists because
| <insert_some_rational_reason>.
|
| It's the double standard that irks me.
|
| I think we can agree that war is shit and everybody would
| be better off without it.
|
| But, no, that's not the proposed alternative. The
| proposed alternative is that a group of people, in this
| case the Ukrainians, effectively surrender and become
| diminished. Future generations of russians will look at
| them and say "we're justified in treating you ask shit
| because after all we won and you lost". This happened
| over and over in history. Hell, this is why most white
| supremacists think they are the chosen ones, because
| whites conquered.
|
| So how should I judge the people who want to defend
| themselves? I honestly cannot blame them from trying
| their best.
| rainworld wrote:
| No, you're still not getting it. This "double standard"
| is a figment of your imagination, it doesn't exist.
| Roughly every country on Earth acknowledges Ukraine's
| _right_ to self-defense. A large number of them is
| materially supporting Ukraine.
|
| They are free to defend themselves till the bitter end.
| No one is stopping them. And, theatrics aside, support
| isn't ceasing either.
|
| But they're not winning. There's no _right_ to that.
| twixfel wrote:
| If you cared about Russian and Ukrainian lives then you
| would be arguing for Russia to leave immediately. Only
| Russia can end this war, by retreating back to the
| internationally recognised borders.
|
| Russia has "vital interests" that the whole world is,
| according to Russian imperialists such as yourself,
| obliged to bend over backwards to accommodate.
|
| Well, guess what, we Europeans have vital interests too.
| Our vital interest is a free and independent Ukraine.
| Russia is not the only country with interests, you know!
|
| So: get over it.
| rainworld wrote:
| Don't tell mopsi but I'm not actually Russian.
|
| _Our_ vital interest is cheap energy and a peaceful
| near-abroad.
|
| Not _our_ vital interest:
| https://static.dw.com/image/17298012_1004.webp
| twixfel wrote:
| I disagree completely. The revival of the Russian empire
| is not in the interest of Europe. In no universe would it
| ever be. It's obvious really.
| mopsi wrote:
| > I'm not actually Russian. /---/ near-abroad.
|
| A leopard cannot change its spots:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_abroad
| ithkuil wrote:
| I'm not talking about whether you guys should give him
| money.
|
| But it's totally normal for a country to try to defend
| itself.
|
| I honestly don't understand why people seem to ignore
| this angle and just keep talking about budget and money
| and foreign interests and nato and what not.
|
| Ok, you don't want to give Ukraine money for their
| defence, FINE, do not give them money!
|
| But why do you have to frame it as zelenski is corrupt,
| traitor, murderer, boogyman or whatever.
|
| No normal leader of a country being invaded would be
| expected to surrender their country. They would have been
| hanged by their own people.
|
| What I find infuriating about this discourse is the
| double standard. At the same time the american right is
| absolutely going bezerk over "immigrant invasion" and
| when some other people suffer an invasion "nah, I don't
| see the problem, they will just get along fine if they
| surrender".
|
| You're free to spend your money as you wish, but it's the
| total lack of empathy (about this and other causes) that
| rubs me the wrong way.
| rainworld wrote:
| Your understanding of matters of war and state is
| juvenile. I encourage you to ignore the spectacle (to
| follow it is an almost complete waste of time anyway),
| and read some old books about even older wars.
|
| >just keep talking about budget and money and foreign
| interests and nato and what not.
|
| Because that's what it's about. War is a murder machine
| with an enormous appetite. Moral justifications are
| usually post-hoc, seldom driving, and certainly never
| exclusive.
| mopsi wrote:
| > You're free to spend your money as you wish, but it's
| the total lack of empathy (about this and other causes)
| that rubs me the wrong way.
|
| You are not talking to an American, but to a Russian
| imperialist, and a very stereotypcal one at that.
| Extremely cynical and utterly devoid of decency, because
| for generations, the most moral and decent people have
| ended up in penal camps. As for the rest rest - you just
| saw a fine specimen. All that cynicism is meant to give
| the impression of independent thinking (primarily to
| themselves), but at the end of the day, they're just
| parroting state propaganda and goosestepping to the tune
| coming from the Kremlin. And when their country
| inevitably degrades once again to the point where little
| children are forced to prostitute themselves for food as
| the economically unsustainable imperialistic wars
| backfire, they will blame you and me for it, because it's
| always someone else's fault. This self-destructive loop
| has been going on for many centuries and is the main
| reason why no one in Europe bordering Russia can stand
| them. People sincerely dream of an ocean between Europe
| and China.
|
| From time to time, some countries in Europe have tried to
| reason with Russian imperialism. Timothy Snyder's
| "Bloodlands" offers a vivid depiction of how that went:
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465031471
| rainworld wrote:
| Thanks, mopsi, I'm flattered. Have to say, though, I
| don't think your valiant and steadfast defense of
| Ukraine's e-turf makes as much of a difference as you
| think it does. Therefore I'd like you to consider putting
| your feet where your fingertips are:
| https://www.ildu.com.ua Every warm body makes a
| difference!
| pjc50 wrote:
| Hundreds of thousands of casualties for Russia too.
| Haven't they considered just stopping?
|
| Ukraine as client police state is not a casualty free
| environment either. Really the war started when pro-
| Russian security services killed over a hundred
| protesters at Euromaidan, back in 2014.
|
| Someone who genuinely cared about Russian lives, rather
| than just the regime or contrarianism, would want the
| Russians to pull out immediately like the Americans out
| of Afghanistan.
| rainworld wrote:
| >Haven't they considered just stopping?
|
| We don't have to speculate. They've just presented to
| Ukraine and published their conditions for ceasefire or
| settlement.
|
| The reaction suggests Ukraine/the West would rather
| continue. Of course, demands will only increase.
|
| > Really the war started with Euromaidan
|
| Sure it wasn't when Ukrainian nationalists burned 42
| people to death in Odessa?
|
| >regime, pull out
|
| Ah, but Ukraine/the West were given so many opportunities
| to settle this peacefully. Even the March 2023 settlement
| (which has been published) was dangerously generous, for
| said regime. But peace was not on Western leaders' mind.
| They wanted something else.
|
| (Preposterous to compare Ukraine/Russia with
| Afghanistan/US.)
| pjc50 wrote:
| Russia can unilaterally retreat inside their
| international borders at any time.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Cried wolf situation, I suppose. Because the occupation
| of Afghanistan and Iraq was illegitimate and failed,
| therefore supporting Ukraine is bad (ignoring the totally
| different facts of the different situation).
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Also the exact same politicians and party that was so
| fucking Gung Ho at bombing the middle east (not even
| picking a country!) that you were "Unamerican" for not
| believing straight up lies by the administration (that
| nobody went to jail for) are the ones crying about
| defending a Sovereign nation being unilaterally invaded
| in Europe.
|
| They are also tee-ing us up to attack Iran, and have
| provably spent money attacking Houthis despite knowing
| that Europe would take care of themselves.
|
| They are full of shit and they know it. They do not care.
| username332211 wrote:
| Never-mind that, there's every indication this one is in
| fact yet another bad one.
|
| The Taliban didn't return to power in Afghanistan,
| because the war was unjust according to international
| law, or morally repugnant or any of that. That has never
| mattered. And it won't ever matter.
|
| The Taliban won because American strategy was defective
| from the start. While great victories with thousands of
| Taliban getting massacred were common, none of those
| contributed the destruction of the Taliban or any other
| strategic objective. There had been minimal effort to
| learn from the failures of Vietnam and the idea of
| learning from British victories against the insurgents in
| Malaya and South Africa was unthinkable.
|
| And the situation in Ukraine gives every indication of
| being similar. The Ukrainian side conducts ambitious
| operations, some of them impressive successes, but ever
| since the summer of 2023, victory only seems to be
| getting more distant as time goes by.
| ttshaw1 wrote:
| Why, because Russia can grind out a village a week?
| Ukraine is inflicting disproportionate losses and is
| supplied to the hilt by Europe, while Russia's moving
| closer every day to a Potemkin economy.
| username332211 wrote:
| Ukraine is inflicting massively disproportionate losses.
| Meanwhile, Ukraine does very aggressive conscription
| while Russia mostly deploys volunteers and only resorted
| to reservists in 2022 in an emergency. It doesn't really
| add up, does it.
|
| And the collapse of the Russian economy will happen any
| day now for the past 3 years.
|
| After 20 years of being told the military leadership of
| the western world had COIN all figured out, you're going
| to have to give people something more than a prayer that
| the enemy's economy will collapse all of a sudden. Proud
| ignorance of the basic facts of the field or of the enemy
| won't procure much public support any more.
| ttshaw1 wrote:
| Of course Ukraine conscripts, they're in a war for their
| survival. They aren't drafting anyone under 25, by the
| way, so it's not as dire as you seem to think. And
| Russia's beating people and throwing them in pits if they
| won't sign contracts to go to Ukraine, so it's not all
| roses over there.
|
| It's not at all unreasonable to think that Ukraine can
| continue ceding ground and shredding Ladas full of mobiks
| until Putin kicks the bucket, or the Russian economy
| collapses. A healthy economy doesn't have a 20% key
| interest rate for 8 months straight, you know. We've
| already seen one large-scale mutiny in the Russian armed
| forces, too, so who knows what else might happen?
|
| You haven't proposed any sort of alternative to
| continuing to arm and fund Ukraine. What's your idea, cut
| them off and say "good luck?" How does that benefit
| anyone besides Russia and the minority of Ukrainians who
| don't want to fight?
|
| edit: if you're thinking that I care about the financial
| cost of arming Ukraine, I don't. This is the best money
| we've ever spent and the only time I've respected our
| MIC, and I wish we were sending more weapons and more
| financial support. Every time Ukraine spends $100,000 of
| aid destroying a piece of Russian armor, that's saving us
| god knows how much in money spent on deterrence.
| dh2022 wrote:
| What American-Vietnam war and American-Afganistan war had
| in common was counterinsurgency of the opposing forces
| embedded with local population (VietCong embedded with
| local south Vietnamese villagers; Taliban embedded with
| Afghan villagers). This broke the war for Americans. (If
| we are pedantic we can observe a similar situation in the
| second American-Iraqi war with similar outcome for
| Americans)
|
| This situation is not present in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Boris Johnson contributed to untold damage to the UK with
| covid and brexit.
|
| But his actions with Ukraine were unimpeachable. As a
| populist leader throwing immediate public support (I think
| he was the first foreign leader to go to Kyiv, certainly
| one of the first) it kneecapped the Useful Idiots like
| Farage.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Agreed. It is the only worthwhile thing Johnson has done
| in his miserable life.
| roryirvine wrote:
| It was actually Ursula von der Leyen who was first,
| arriving in Kyiv the day before Johnson's visit (neither
| of them were aware of the other's travel plans, for
| security reasons).
|
| It is fair to say that Boris did end up forming a
| particularly strong bond with Zelenskyy, though if you
| wanted to be cynical you might perhaps point out that two
| of his three subsequent visits to Kyiv coincided with
| some of the trickiest moments in the Partygate scandal,
| and allowed him to get out of events that would likely
| have proven embarrassing for him.
| mlinhares wrote:
| The average American (like the average citizen of almost
| any other country) doesn't care about this in general and
| needs leadership to sway their opinion one way or another.
| If the leaders don't care, they hold enough power and
| visibility to make it moot and get people to care about
| other things, like inflation, price of eggs or immigrants
| stealing their jobs.
|
| People have this thinking nations have these widely shared
| opinions when they don't, the politics and visible leaders
| are the ones shaping public opinion.
| freeopinion wrote:
| I think your main point is valid, but the pedantic in me
| struggles with your wording. I think the point you are
| tring to make is this:
|
| Nations don't have a single shared opinion even if they
| have a single shared action.
|
| It frusrates me that the people of Russia allow their
| country to continue its aggression even in the face of
| such staggering losses. I can't understand their
| thinking. Then I remind myself that there is not just a
| single brain called Russia. There is not even just a
| single brain in the leadership of Russia.
|
| I suspect that the percentage of US voters that support
| Ukraine is pretty high. A quick internet seach tells me
| that Pres. Trump's current approval rating is well below
| 50%. But I suspect support for impeachment is very much
| lower than that and support for a coup is practically
| non-existent.
|
| It makes sense to me that the same holds in Russia. Tens
| of thousands of Russians each month lose a
| husband/son/father/brother in this war. Some may blame
| Ukraine and want revenge. Some may feel some patriotic or
| nationalistic justification for their loss. Others may
| hate Putin for it. Still others may convert to pacifism.
| But there seems little evidence that there is any will to
| do what it takes to challenge the power that keeps
| sending thousands more to their death. A very small
| percent of the population can continue to inflict this
| horror on all of Russia.
|
| I would love to believe that there are voices even within
| Putin's hearing that quietly but consistently advocate
| for peace and somehow don't get removed. Imagine that
| there are people who make a point of never publicly
| falling out, but once a week hand deliver a note about
| improved GDP if Russia ended the invasion. Or they
| verbally suggest seaside resorts that could host old-
| fashioned vacations if they weren't in a war zone. Or
| they ponder out loud how much better the domestic auto
| industry could be if some of the military spending were
| diverted. Imagine the combined efforts of a few people to
| make sure Putin gets one subtle peacemaker message each
| day.
|
| Please don't condemn all Russians. And please don't
| condemn all USians. And certainly please don't condemn
| all Americans. I don't know how much the average American
| cares, but I for one hope it is more than zero.
| dblangford wrote:
| I would love to see something like The Great Egg Race back on
| TV instead of another series of Celebrities doing things Badly.
| Robot Wars is the closest we've been I suppose.
| ljf wrote:
| I used to love 'Scrap Heap Challenge' - brilliant Sunday TV
| (mixed with an episode of Time Team too!)
| arethuza wrote:
| Seems like a good excuse to mention the Commando Memorial near
| Spean Bridge:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commando_Memorial
| pjc50 wrote:
| The picture at the top shows the monument itself, but it's
| even more impressive in context as it's on top of a treeless
| moorland hill, surrounded by incredible views.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I took a photo of the statue years ago. A friend told me that
| he knew an old gent who has been in the commandos and was a
| model for one of the figures in the statue. But he had never
| seen the statue. So I was able to give him a copy of the
| photo to pass on to him.
|
| Fancy having a statue of yourself and never bother going to
| see it!
| arethuza wrote:
| That makes me think about this gentleman:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDGHKyB3T_U
| physicsguy wrote:
| On top of that, soldiers from the US were billeted all over the
| place.
| Yeul wrote:
| There are still remnants of the Atlantik wall in the
| Netherlands. The Germans demolished the entire coastline- and
| made hundreds of thousands of people homeless.
|
| An invasion of the Netherlands was never likely considering it
| is a swamp in which tanks cannot operate with rivers and canals
| every few kilometers. Ironically the very last place in Europe
| that was liberated because the Allies bypassed it in their
| drive to the Ruhr.
| icameron wrote:
| There's good footage of actual tests about 40 seconds into this
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJQqXXENYsI
| sevensor wrote:
| Nevil Shute is worth a read. Best known for _On The Beach_ ,
| probably, but I enjoyed _Round the Bend_ more.
| emmelaich wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevil_Shute
|
| _A Town Like Alice_ is probably the most popular in Australia,
| where he resided after the war. Also made into a good movie.
| arandomusername wrote:
| [flagged]
| elephant81 wrote:
| https://www.neilobrien.co.uk/p/the-confluence?utm_medium=ios
| Tyler Cowen posted this last week, I was completely shocked by
| it. Worth reading on the state of the UK in general.
| HK-NC wrote:
| Isnt what hes saying super naughty? I know Kier Starmer
| changed his tune lately regarding immigration, I'm just not
| used to reading or hearing people talk aboit these things
| without an air of secrecy.
| veqq wrote:
| > 90 percent of the American people stated that they would
| rather loose [sic] the war than give full equality to the
| American Negroes
|
| from Greenberg's Troubling the Waters about Black-Jewish
| relations.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| it's unfair to hold people from the past to our moral
| standards. I'm sure that in 50 years they will be appalled at
| some of the things we do. Society progresses. Hopefully.
| tomhow wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44219711 and marked it off
| topic.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| There's an episode of the 1970s BBC documentary series "The
| Secret War" about the miscellaneous technology projects that
| sound obviously crazy now, or may have been cancelled to soon:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJCF-Ufapu8&t=8883s
|
| The whole series is worth a watch, including episodes on radio
| location finding, radar and radar jamming, Jet engines, the V1/V2
| rockets, and Ultra/Enigma etc. Many of the participants (both
| British and German) are interviewed - including Albert Speer.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| It is interesting how the Germans made all these spectacular
| high tech weapons (V1, V2, rocket planes etc) and yet it was
| the less flashy Allied tech advances that made the difference
| (cavity magnetron, early computers, proximity fuses etc).
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Electronic warfare in WWII was a competition and it looks
| like the US/UK had the upper hand because, in retrospect,
| they won the war. Germans were ahead in some areas, not least
| magnetic tape
|
| https://historictech.com/a-secret-ww2-american-hi-fi-tape-
| re...
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Germany had a lot of top scientists and engineers. But I'm
| not sure I can see how mag tape would be a war winning
| weapon in the way that radar, early computers or proximity
| fuses were.
|
| Of course, Germany booted out loads of Jewish scientists.
| Many of whom ended up doing important work for the Allies -
| not least on the atom bomb.
| hoseja wrote:
| What a silly gadget.
|
| Also by the way the Normandy beaches were NOT fortified with
| bunkers very much at all (unlike what you might have seen in
| Saving Private Ryan), just trenches and sandbags. A large portion
| of Omaha beach casualties were inflicted by a single machine gun
| nest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Severloh
| dwroberts wrote:
| > Severloh's claim is not viewed as credible by either US or
| German historians
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| > Also by the way the Normandy beaches were NOT fortified with
| bunkers very much at all
|
| I'm not sure if you mean there were not many bunkers or they
| weren't very good fortifications, but there are quite a few
| bunkers, for example: https://www.normandybunkers.com/bunker-
| sites
| cobbzilla wrote:
| The article mentions speculation that the whole project may
| have been part of a larger ruse that the landing would be in a
| more fortified place.
| j00pY wrote:
| Near to where I live, there are the remnants of test concrete
| walls that were used to assess the best way to blow them up.
| Apparently people snuck over, took some samples of the concrete
| to recreate how it was made, and then constructed lots of
| sections of this wall--which they would then use to test their
| explosives against.
|
| https://surreyhills.org/places-to-see/atlantic-wall/
| robin_reala wrote:
| Huh, that's really not far from where I grew up, and I had no
| idea it existed.
| anentropic wrote:
| I am sympathetic to the idea that this was intended as a
| misdirection
|
| The flaws in the design seem reasonably obvious - any imbalance
| in the thrust of the multiple rockets on each wheel causing an
| unwanted steering effect. Also the high centre of gravity and
| narrow track width seem poorly chosen when stability would surely
| be desirable.
|
| A mobile Catherine Wheel seems more designed to attract as much
| attention as possible...
| hermitcrab wrote:
| The USA also had it's own mad weapons:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb
| thenthenthen wrote:
| I am quite curious about the etymology behind the name
| 'Panjandrum', It is not explained in the article IIRC.
| Furthermore, the article writes about the improbability of
| homing/self-stearing devices, again IIRC flight navigation around
| this time already made use of known radio broadcasts for
| direction finding before the war (Amelia Earhart), did they
| research this or was it to unreliable.. because said war (jamming
| etc)?
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