History Myths and Misconceptions of History you Hate

Vargas Fan

Head over heels in love :)
The entire idea that Operation Sea Lion could have worked if it hadn't been for those blasted kids in the RAF (and Fleet Air Arm).

Sea Lion was a disaster of a plan and was extremely unlikely to have worked. The Wehrmacht was also depending on the deployment of parachutists from Ju-52/3m transport planes as well as landing troops in Rhine River barges.
 

FriedCFour

PunishedCFour
Founder
The entire idea that Operation Sea Lion could have worked if it hadn't been for those blasted kids in the RAF (and Fleet Air Arm).

Sea Lion was a disaster of a plan and was extremely unlikely to have worked. The Wehrmacht was also depending on the deployment of parachutists from Ju-52/3m transport planes as well as landing troops in Rhine River barges.
Would've probably just resulted in the Kriegsmarine at the bottom of the Ocean as Britannia still ruled the waves, and Britains would fight not to be made slaves.
 

AndrewJTalon

Well-known member
Founder
Would've probably just resulted in the Kriegsmarine at the bottom of the Ocean as Britannia still ruled the waves, and Britains would fight not to be made slaves.

I think "The Axis Powers could have won World War II" arguments in general annoy me. Germany, Japan and Italy combined barely matched a quarter (at best!) of the industrial might of the US, USSR, the British Empire and the rest of the Allies. That is me being extremely generous. They had nowhere near the same population numbers, or access to the same resources, and due to the way they ran their regimes they were extremely self defeating. Yes, the Soviet Union was a tyrannical regime itself but the difference is, they had the numbers and resource advantage and they didn't piss the rest of the Allies off.

Oh certainly, with smarter leadership and more investment in defenses and better strategies, (and if they were luckier) they could have stretched World War II on for longer. But the simple fact of the matter is, Hitler was beaten the moment he pissed off the USSR, and was definitely screwed when the Allies landed in Italy and France. Japan for that matter didn't make the Pacific War easy for the Americans at any point-They could have regained some offensive momentum if they'd managed to capitalize on the Guadacanal campaign and sinking the USS Hornet, for instance, after Midway. But in the long run, the Axis powers were up against the most powerful and most industrialized nations on the planet (ALL of whom they had pissed off) and they couldn't really support each other. They were going to lose, whether it took six years or ten years of global conflict.
 
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Comrade Clod

Gay Space Communist
I think "The Axis Powers could have won World War II" arguments in general annoy me. Germany, Japan and Italy combined barely matched a quarter (at best!) of the industrial might of the US, USSR, the British Empire and the rest of the Allies. That is me being extremely generous. They had nowhere near the same population numbers, or access to the same resources, and due to the way they ran their regimes they were extremely self defeating. Yes, the Soviet Union was a tyrannical regime itself but the difference is, they had the numbers and resource advantage and they didn't piss the rest of the Allies off.

Oh certainly, with smarter leadership and more investment in defenses and better strategies, (and if they were luckier) they could have stretched World War II on for longer. But the simple fact of the matter is, Hitler was beaten the moment he pissed off the USSR, and was definitely screwed when the Allies landed in Italy and France. Japan for that matter didn't make the Pacific War easy for the Americans at any point-They could have regained some offensive momentum if they'd managed to capitalize on the Guadacanal campaign and sinking the USS Hornet, for instance, after Midway. But in the long run, the Axis powers were up against the most powerful and most industrialized nations on the planet (ALL of whom they had pissed off) and they couldn't really support each other. They were going to lose, whether it took six years or ten years of global conflict.

The USSR, US and to an extent the UK probably could have beaten their Axis opponents on their own, that they were all on the same side stacked the deck so hard in favour of the allies you could outright ignore the possibility of even a white peace.
 

AndrewJTalon

Well-known member
Founder
The USSR, US and to an extent the UK probably could have beaten their Axis opponents on their own, that they were all on the same side stacked the deck so hard in favour of the allies you could outright ignore the possibility of even a white peace.

That and the Axis had Italy on their side. They might as well have done without.

Other pet peeves:

-That the Native Americans were some kind of innocent child-like nature worshipers with Gaia magic before the Europeans came is absurd. My degree is in anthropology, I studied the Anasazi of the Southwest and the Mayans in Central America. They did great things, and they did terrible things: Like any other human civilization. They were human beings, capable of good and evil and defining those concepts according to their own values. They had complex relations with other tribes, ranging from trade, to subservience, and warfare: Just as they did with the Western world. To reduce them to agency-less victims, "innocents" corrupted and destroyed by the Europeans because White Man Bad is atrocious propaganda.

-Endless preaching about the evils of the European slave trade but not a peep about the African or Islamic slave trades, which went on for far longer, killed more people, and are still practiced to this day in many parts of the Middle East. Don't see anyone demanding this be addressed with the same vehemence directed towards the people whose ancestors outlawed slavery for almost two centuries and who fought a bloody civil war over it.

-Insistence that Atlantis was real. It's from Plato's dialogue Timaeus and while potentially based off stories of an island civilization that was destroyed by a volcanic eruption, the entire point of the dialogue was that Atlantis was a large, immoral empire that a small but moral Athens defeated-Essentially that good can triumph over evil even when the odds are against you. It's a good story but it didn't actually happen and all the mysticism and super technology associated with Atlantis is thanks to idiots in the 19th and 20th centuries applying it retroactively.
 

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
-That the Native Americans were some kind of innocent child-like nature worshipers with Gaia magic before the Europeans came is absurd. My degree is in anthropology, I studied the Anasazi of the Southwest and the Mayans in Central America. They did great things, and they did terrible things: Like any other human civilization. They were human beings, capable of good and evil and defining those concepts according to their own values. They had complex relations with other tribes, ranging from trade, to subservience, and warfare: Just as they did with the Western world. To reduce them to agency-less victims, "innocents" corrupted and destroyed by the Europeans because White Man Bad is atrocious propaganda.

-Endless preaching about the evils of the European slave trade but not a peep about the African or Islamic slave trades, which went on for far longer, killed more people, and are still practiced to this day in many parts of the Middle East. Don't see anyone demanding this be addressed with the same vehemence directed towards the people whose ancestors outlawed slavery for almost two centuries and who fought a bloody civil war over it.

These two go against the usual paradigms people are used to, especially when it comes to who gets to be depicted as underdogs In fiction and it also has to do with ignorance or simply being unaware that African/Islamic Slave Trade as well as entire pseudo-industries based of raiding places to abduct people existed long before whites enslaved africans, a number of whom were sold by fellow africans

Hell, I don't think anyone's heard of that "Children's Crusade" that resulted in most of the kids dying on their way to Jerusalem or being captured and sold to the highest bidder
 

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
That the Catholic Church was only ever a spiritual organization, never a political one.

And that it was a hell of dumb and fanatical.

I’m not sure which priest did it, but there was one who was both articulate and explained in detail how horrible men are during war, particularly during sacks. Even had a problem with witch hunts due to people being fucking dumb as well in-regards to whoever or whatever they accuse of being witches and because the death toll and cruelty was horrifying
 

AndrewJTalon

Well-known member
Founder
John F. Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theories. Yes, there are some weird things about it: It was the assassination of a US President, there are bound to be all sorts of weird things (Like Jack Ruby up and killing Oswald). But most of these conspiracy theories presume far too much about either President Kennedy and his place in history or the power of various organizations. History happens and no one can predict it, because one man with a gun in the right place at the right time can alter the course of it. And that was Lee Harvey Oswald, a Communist sympathizer who had already previously tried to assassinate Edwin Walker, a US General, and who regarded the United States government as "fascist".

That and a lot of it tries to lionize JFK as some kind of saint or martyr. I'm not going to bash on him because he was a childhood hero of mine: he was a war hero, kept his cool in the Cuban Missile Crisis, formalized the alliance with Israel, improved the economy, and pushed the US to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. At the same time he was a womanizer, elitist, was responsible for the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and was weak in his actions against the USSR (The Cuban Missile Crisis was ultimately resolved only because we withdrew our missiles from Turkey and they removed their missiles from Cuba-A de-escalation in hostilities and a good thing but not the diplomatic triumph it is lauded as). Had he lived, perhaps things would have been different and he would have lived up to all those expectations and veneration. But he didn't, and so we can only wonder. But acting like his death was some kind of huge conspiracy to upend the Free World or preserve some kind of evil plot is just stupid.
 

Big Steve

For the Republic!
Founder
IIRC the reason the Turkey withdrawals are still seen as a "win" on the US side is either because the US intended to pull them already or because they were an older model of missile that weren't as valuable? I forget, and I might be wrong.
 

AndrewJTalon

Well-known member
Founder
IIRC the reason the Turkey withdrawals are still seen as a "win" on the US side is either because the US intended to pull them already or because they were an older model of missile that weren't as valuable? I forget, and I might be wrong.

It is true the Jupiter nuclear-tipped missiles were obsolete and that their job could be done better by the Polaris submarine-launched ICBM. And that Turkey was, at the time, insisting on their deployment for political reasons. And keeping them in Turkey long term was bad because they would be easily destroyed by a Soviet air strike.
 

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
Correct me if I’m wrong, but was Mother Teresa actually a crazy person who chose NOT to use all that donation money to help people, because she believed them suffering would make them closer to God
 

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
i'd like to add to this
people who talk about slavery in the western hemisphere as if it only existed in the southern us from 1770 to 1864,
and ignore the caribbean sugar trade, the spanish enslavement of natives, etc.

That’s not covered enough in Hollywood I guess

Man, fiction really DOES change and influence people, only when they’re fucking dumb and intellectually lazy
 

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
IIRC the reason the Turkey withdrawals are still seen as a "win" on the US side is either because the US intended to pull them already or because they were an older model of missile that weren't as valuable? I forget, and I might be wrong.
It was portrayed as a win because it was kept secret initially and once this fact became known the media didn't care anymore. Even today most people only know about Soviets pulling their missiles from Cuba and nothing about USA pulling their missiles out of Turkey.
 

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