Validity of Bell Curve distribution of grades

[Doom]

Russia and Japan had a non-aggression agreement, much to the annoyance of the US....Russian and Japanese troops were happy to just glare at each other for a few years (Stalin, of cource, voided the agreement such as it was once he had nothing better to do).

It's an interesting 'what if' for whether the Orcs/Russians would have been able to eventually swarm the Elves/Germans. The US certainly made it extremely difficult for Germany to win, but without the US aid ultimately I think Germany still wouldn't have been able to make enough bullets to stop the Russians winning eventually (at horrific cost, of course, and Moscow would have been overrun). Stalingrad, for example, wasn't a defeat for Germany because of the high explosives...there just wasn't enough German troops to handle the attrition (it would have taken longer without transport vehicles, perhaps), and Stalin was certainly willing to fight until the last drop of everyone else's blood before giving up, another 20 million casualties would be nothing to him.

[cthulhu]

I know the Russians and the Japanese had a Non-aggression pact.. but yeah Stalin was only really confident that the Japanese wouldn't attack him when they rather foolishly decided to start something with someone else and thus could be confidently be counted as 'distracted' - The russian units from the east were critical in resisting the push to Moscow.

It would have been almost impossible for the Russians to break through and encircle the Germans without trucks, jeeps and artillery. Stalingrad was only a crushing defeat for the germans because the russians could encircle them.

Indeed, even with massive US assistance the Russians still had constant shortages of artillery rounds. Artillery is the second biggest killer in WWII and yeah, they just couldn't make ammo fast enough.

[Neeeek]

Without US aid, the Russian army would have likely starved to death long before the Germans could finish them off. There is a reason that Stalin regarded the US sending Spam to the USSR as the most important thing of all.

[tzor]

I think you really missed the point I was trying to make. Almost all of WWII would be completely rewritten. Germany invades France on May 10, 1940, (the same day Churchill becomes PM) and before the occupation of Paris on June 14, 1940 and the signing of the armistice on June 22, 1940, the greatest boat lift occured buetween May 23 and June 3. If that had not been allowed to take place (delaying the signing of the armistance) the government of Churchill would have had no defenses whatsoever to prevent an invasion. Forget the use of the air force only for the Battle of Brittian. Britian would have been taken in a matter of months. Europe would be totally controlled by the Axis. The Allied powers would have never formed in the first place. The United States would have no ally whatsoever in Europe (Russia would still be friendly with Germany at this point.) United States support for China could easily collapse (the major source of conflict between the United States and Japan). In fact, it might be possible that Germany never invades Russia for a number of years, if at all, because it might be possible that FDR joins the Axis in order to keep the economically destroyed United States afloat and to get another election.

[cthulhu]

It's not obvious that killing BEF would have lead to the invasion of the UK. It would have made the war last longer though, nor did Hitler come up the pause order, the generals on the ground did.

[Doom]

Germany really wasn't in a position to invade England at the time (keep in mind, England had already built planes that could easily bomb Germany, but Germany did not have such reciprocal plans or planes in relevant numbers).

It's strongly alleged, that allowing the BEF to escape was part of a peace initiative by Hitler although it was pure crazy on Hitler's part if so--there was no chance of Churchill ever allowing peace with the hated hun (again, Britain declared war on Germany, not the other way around).

Without the BEF, Germany had a chance of a successful naval invasion, but it would have been a very dicey thing--Britain still would have a massively superior navy and very credible air/shore defenses (and, again, limited German naval transport would not allow D-Day style swarming, some lucky hits could have made the invasion of the whole country doomed to fail).

[Chamomile]

Hitler is one of the few genuine supervillains the world's ever seen, so we like to pretend that if just one of a number of last ditch efforts made during WWII had failed, then surely he would have kept his iron grip on Europe, if not the world, for the duration of his natural life. The fact is, though, that the worst-case scenario for the war in Europe is very similar to what actually happened. All of the actually plausible "what-if" scenarios are actually very dull, though potentially frightening as they result in a world wherein Germany and Italy are probably still fascist countries in 2011: What if Hitler had been smart enough to stop at Czechoslovakia and Mussolini never went past Africa? What if Churchill hadn't been elected, Hitler sued for peace after taking France, and the new PM accepted? What if Hitler never attacked France, and instead the French and Germans just looked at each other over their gunsights at the Maginot Line for a few years, then shrugged their shoulders and went home? What if Hitler got accepted to art school? If Hitler did use the Jews as scapegoats but didn't try to exterminate them, would he be remembered as fondly by Germans as Napoleon is by the French?

On the other end, if the Japanese had never attacked the United States, what would happen there? I'm inclined to think that Japan v. China was about as doomed to failure as Germany v. Russia. What would the modern world look like if Japan was ultimately pushed out of China by the Chinese, then made peace with them and the British in India/Australia, while still holding onto their holdings in Southeast Asia and the Pacific?

[CatharzGodfoot]

Wow, is this some kind of uber-Godwin? What does WWII have to do with grading on the curve?

[Doom]

I have no idea, but the grading on the curve thing was so quickly dispatched that we may as well talk about something else.

[Whatever]

There were maybe a half dozen genuinely insane individuals at the center of Nazi Germany, at most. It's probably even fair to call them evil. That was all it took to turn what could have been merely an incredibly destructive war into, well, a holocaust.

Plus there was Stalin.

[tzor]

Hitler is one of the few genuine supervillains the world's ever seen, ...

I have to really call you on this. He's rotten, dirty and did horrible things, but he's really in the minor leagues compared to the great Gengis Khan's of the world. Consider the simple fact that even while Germany was loosing the war, they kept to all the various pre war conventions on war and the treatment of prisoners.

Kahn would have used any prisoners caught as human shields. And that would be one of the nicest things he would have done. He definitely would have used the old WWI stockpile of chemical weapons, without hesitation. He probably would have used biological warfare too, since he would have had knowledge of it. German U boats could have just as easily been used to launch a plague attack against the east coast instead of cutting off shipping routes. Chemical/biological attacks against Russia/England would have been extreemely deadly since the air force / missle progam was superior in the skies. A bomb only does do much damage; a biological weapon would spread out to the entire city.

[shadzar]

Kahn ~~~~ probably would have used biological warfare too, since he would have had knowledge of it.

if memory serves me, he DID use biological warfare, by putting decaying or diseased corpses in water supplies of people he wanted to take over or to join him as meat shields or "cannon fodder".

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Everyone did that back in those days. Temujin didn't invent that tactic, not by a long shot.

There were a few things he did that no one else did though:

1. If you surrendered without a fight, he'd keep his word and not kill everyone. He would demand that they start funding his expansion with wealth and fighting men, but he wouldn't annihilate anyone who didn't resist.

2. He allowed people he conquered freedom of religion. Very few people did that in those days (Temujin was a Mongolian Shamanist, but many of the mongol tribes he united were Buddhist, Muslim, and Christian. He decided to let them all practice whatever religion suited them).

3. There was a reason why his rule was called the Pax Mongolica. He kept the peace in his realm better than anyone else. It was said that a nude woman could ride from Poland to Korea without being assaulted in those days. The Mongols hated bandits more than anything else, and pretty much made them not exist within the Khanate.

[Chamomile]

It was said that a nude woman could ride from Poland to Korea without being assaulted in those days.

This sounds like the plot to either a really bad or a really good campaign.

Also, while Genghis Khan's nastiness can be debated, even if the ultimate conclusion is that Hitler is peanuts compared to him, two is not a big enough number to remove Hitler from the category of "one of the world's few super villains."

Also, keep in mind the difference between a villain and a super villain.

[Neeeek]

Consider the simple fact that even while Germany was loosing the war, they kept to all the various pre war conventions on war and the treatment of prisoners.

Ah yes, the WWII Germans who mass executed POWs...

[Chamomile]

Ah yes, the WWII Germans who mass executed POWs...

To say nothing of the laundry list of Geneva violations they racked up for the ones not shot. Or the "werewolves," a special division of the Nazi army recruited straight from the Hitler Youth, who were rather famous for violating war conventions (they were known to surrender and then blow themselves and their captors to pieces with grenades). This is off the top of my head.

[tzor]

Consider the simple fact that even while Germany was loosing the war, they kept to all the various pre war conventions on war and the treatment of prisoners.

Ah yes, the WWII Germans who mass executed POWs...

You got a link for this? Because I have a WWII POW for a father. When the Germans retreated from his camp, they basically left them there and opened the gates.

In fact you could easily divide all WWII POW veterans into three categories.

Officers captured in Germany: Under the convention they didn't have to work.

Non officers captured in Germany: Forced to work clean up crews; mingled with the cvilian population who basically had slightly more than they did.

Anyone captured in the Pacific theater: Treated as crap with no regards to the conventions. Whether they were treated worse or better than those later captured in Vietnam is debatable.

[shadzar]

You got a link for this?

The Great Escape?

The book covers the planning, execution and aftermath of what became known as The Great Escape. Other escape attempts (such as the Wooden Horse) are mentioned as well as the postwar hunt for the Gestapo agents who murdered fifty of the escapees on Hitler's direct order.

[cthulhu]

You got a link for this? Because I have a WWII POW for a father. When the Germans retreated from his camp, they basically left them there and opened the gates.

Well Malemedy is the first example of the top of my head, but there are at least 4 incidents of SS massacring British POWs in 1940, let alone after that. They also massacred a bunch of black POWs for not being of the master race.

There is also this

A sensation was caused in Allied Headquarters when reports came through that a considerable number of Canadian soldiers were shot after being taken prisoner by the 12th. SS Panzer Division ‘Hitler Jugend’. On the morning of June 8, thirty seven Canadians were taken prisoner by the 2nd Battalion of the 26th Panzer Grenadier Regiment. The prisoners were marched across country to the H/Q of the 2nd Battalion. In the village of Le Mesnil-Patty they were then ordered to sit down in a field with their wounded in the center. In a short while a half track arrived with eight or nine SS soldiers brandishing their machine pistols. Advancing in line towards the prisoners they opened fire killing thirty five men. Two of the Canadians ran for their lives and escaped the slaughter but were rounded up by a different German unit to spend the rest of the war in a POW camp. First to make contact with the Canadians was a combat group led by Obersturmbannfuhrer Karl-Heinz Milius and supported by the Prinz Battalion. Near the villages of Authie and Buron, a number of Canadians of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders, were taken prisoner. Numbering around forty, they were individually killed on the march back to the rear. Eight were ordered to remove their helmets and then shot with automatic rifles. Their bodies were dragged out on to the road and left to be run over by trucks and tanks. French civilians pulled the bodies back on to the pavement but were ordered to stop and to drag the bodies back onto the road again.