Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

For a man trying to recover from his WitP addiction it sure seems to me that Canoerebel spends a great amount of time on the Forum.  For a recovering addict is this a good or bad thing?

Worse than that, I think I saw him playing "Keno" in an airport bar last week.[8|]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11

IMHO the "Thin Red Line" movie by Mallick is, for me, closer to what I felt when I read the book (and other similar books made after WWII - for example "Naked and the Dead") !

Leo "Apollo11"

Really? I remember thinking they were nothing alike. The semi-autobiographical novel is superb though.

ORIGINAL: BrucePowers

Remember Audie Murphie was a war hero. He was awarded the Medal of Honor. He only became an actor when he could not stay in the Army due to his war wounds.

More like severe PTSD...[:(]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

All very true about "Americans getting too much credit" when they barely suffered 600,000 casualties (KIA, MIA, wounded) compared to the millions suffered by other nations/nationalities

The official casualty figure is 1,077,245 although these things are slippy depending on the definitions one uses. Not that it has any bearing on the point you're making.

...oh, and the number of VD hospitalisations were 1,324,698

ORIGINAL: timtom

...oh, and the number of VD hospitalisations were 1,324,698

Does that count the guys that were already in the hospital on Dec 7th? Or just those admitted after 8am? [:D]

When I was in school I was told the American casualties (dead people) was between 300k and 400k. So if the same soldier is wounded 4 times during the war this makes "4 casualties"? [;)]

I prefer the old statistics, the ones I learned in school.

ORIGINAL: timtom
The official casualty figure is 1,077,245 although these things are slippy depending on the definitions one uses. Not that it has any bearing on the point you're making.

...oh, and the number of VD hospitalisations were 1,324,698

You've got to be kidding!? [:D] _More_ U.S. VD hospitalizations than the sum of all wounded, KIA and MIA!? Obviously those American personnel knew what to do with their 'guns' . . .

1,077,245 no kidding. It is interesting the variation you see in these numbers from different souces though isn't it.

I was just browsing some Wiki pages on WWII casualties yesterday and I quoted that sum (~600K) off the top of my head by memory of skimming those pages. The numbers that really made my eyes google out were the casualty numbers for Russia and China. As you browse through that stuff, you try to understand what that _meant_ for people alive at that time in those places, to be surrounded by so much death . . . It just boggles this late 20th century, posh-pampered Westerner's mind. So I may well have just not remembered even what I read accurately, let alone that it was an accurate number I was reading. In any event, I'm sure your number is closer or at least close enough. As you say, the point stands: the relative suffering of the U.S. as a population, a nation, a society, a culture was far, far less than so many others. And yet, as I pointed out, it war arguably the U.S. entry into the war that made the difference between a total defeat of fascism (albeit with the unwanted consequence of 'helping' to establish Russo-'Communist'-Totalitarianism).

A casualty is a dead or wounded individual. A dead person is a fatality.

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

The numbers that really made my eyes google out were the casualty numbers for Russia and China.

And yet, IIRC, Stalin killed more Soviet citizens during his reign than did Hitler during WWII. [X(]

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

When I was in school I was told the American casualties (dead people) was between 300k and 400k. So if the same soldier is wounded 4 times during the war this makes "4 casualties"? [;)]

I prefer the old statistics, the ones I learned in school.

Here is the wiki page for World War II Casualties.

According to this for U.S.
1939 Pop 131,028,000
Sum Milit Deaths 416,800
Sum Civ Deaths 1,700
Total Deaths 418,500
As % of 1939 Pop 0.32%

I know some folks are skeptical of Wikipedia, but evidently Nature (highly esteemed peer-review scientific journal) recently published an article in which the stated that Wiki is better (more accurate, more thorough, more inclusive, more detailed) than Encyclopedia Brittanica, at least for natural sciences. I suspect the same is true for many fields, history, and military history in particular.

Now granted, figures get updated based on uncovered materials, and updated estimates all the time, and that figure does not include wounded, and may not include MIA/never accounted fors. I suppose with wounded and MIA included as "casualties, the number could well get up above 1m

Following the link at the bottom of that wiki page to World War II: Combatants and Casualties (1937 - 1945) (which arguably might just represent the same bias as is on the wiki page itself) we get slightly different numbers on U.S. Pop, and casualties broken into dead+MIA and wounded.

US Pop 129m
US Dead + MIA 300k
US Wounded 300k
Total "Casualties" 600k

That must have been what I noticed the other day.

I'd be curious to check out your sources too TimTom! As somewhat of an epidemiologists, the disparities in different numbers from different sources always amazes me.

The other thing that amazes me is how the relative value of life seems to have changed. I'll admit that, during the peak of the conflict in Iraq, the world media frequently annoyed me with how they portrayed daily events and casualty rates among Coalition personnel as being disastrously high and the mission as being hopeless. Total Coalition casualties last time I looked (a year or so ago) was somewhere close to 4K. Now that things have quieted down, I reckon it will never get to 5K.

I contrast that with certain events or battles in WWII. The sinking of Junyo Maru for example on Sept 18, 1944; a Friendly Fire incident no-less, in which 5,620 were killed! Not just in "one day" but in the matter of an hour or less!

As I said before, the numbers in WWII boggle the mind, and it is perhaps somewhat inappropriate to find irritation when our media keeps us aware of how contemporary events are resulting in deaths. After all, even one death is a tragedy and if it can be avoided, prevented it should be. But arguably, facing a growing threat earlier in its development and accepting relatively casualties that are of debatable 'necessity' may in the historical perspective be far preferable to delaying conflict. That seems to me to be precisely what happened in WWII: for years the allies appeased the Nazis and the Japanese and in the longrun the cost was far greater.

Anyway, there I go again getting _way_ off topic . . .

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

The numbers that really made my eyes google out were the casualty numbers for Russia and China.

And yet, IIRC, Stalin killed more Soviet citizens during his reign than did Hitler during WWII. [X(]

Stalin's total "body count" (sorry for the crassness) will never be known, but is probably somewhere between 50 and 60 million. Hitler was a member of the Vienna Boy's Choir in comparison...

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

The numbers that really made my eyes google out were the casualty numbers for Russia and China.

And yet, IIRC, Stalin killed more Soviet citizens during his reign than did Hitler during WWII. [X(]

Yes indeed! And I also seem to recall someone by the name of Chairman Mao, who some claim was responsible for a very large number of deaths of his own Chinese countrymen too.

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid
The numbers that really made my eyes google out were the casualty numbers for Russia and China.

And yet, IIRC, Stalin killed more Soviet citizens during his reign than did Hitler during WWII. [X(]

Stalin's total "body count" (sorry for the crassness) will never be known, but is probably somewhere between 50 and 60 million. Hitler was a member of the Vienna Boy's Choir in comparison...

The total world population in 1945 was 2.2 billion. There is no way that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of nearly three percent of the entire world's population (that's if he was responsible for the deaths of 60 million people). [This isn't mean to minimize what Stalin did.]

Remember that he took power in 1922. He had 19 years to do his thing, and forced collectivization and purges are estimated to have cost 30 million lives BEFORE Barbarossa. The rest is, I'll admit, a question of assigning guilt, but I'll claim that he was responsible for far more Russian deaths than Hitler. 25 million Soviet citizens died between 6/22/41 and VJ-Day.

And why shouldn't one man be responsible for that many atrocities? Especially when he lived by the axiom that "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic"?

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: witpqs


And yet, IIRC, Stalin killed more Soviet citizens during his reign than did Hitler during WWII. [X(]

Stalin's total "body count" (sorry for the crassness) will never be known, but is probably somewhere between 50 and 60 million. Hitler was a member of the Vienna Boy's Choir in comparison...

The total world population in 1945 was 2.2 billion. There is no way that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of nearly three percent of the entire world's population (that's if he was responsible for the deaths of 60 million people). [This isn't mean to minimize what Stalin did.]

Not during WWII, Stalin did his killing over about a 30-year period. Sad to say he did kill 50-60 million.

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: witpqs


And yet, IIRC, Stalin killed more Soviet citizens during his reign than did Hitler during WWII. [X(]

Stalin's total "body count" (sorry for the crassness) will never be known, but is probably somewhere between 50 and 60 million. Hitler was a member of the Vienna Boy's Choir in comparison...

The total world population in 1945 was 2.2 billion. There is no way that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of nearly three percent of the entire world's population (that's if he was responsible for the deaths of 60 million people). [This isn't mean to minimize what Stalin did.]

Wiki says The Great Purge resulted in between 600K and ~2million deaths.

Holodomor, the word for the Soviet 1932-33 Famine in Ukraine (which arguably was semi-orchestrated by Stalinists as a way to suppress Ukrainian nationalism) is said to have cost between 2.6 and 10 million lives.

Official Soviet figures for Gulag deaths are in the 1m ballpark.

Just those three aspects of Stalins regime gets us up to a min number of about 6 million and a possible high of 13 or 14 m over a span of 10 or 20 years.. But yeah, 50 or 60 million seems high.

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Remember that he took power in 1922. He had 19 years to do his thing, and forced collectivization and purges are estimated to have cost 30 million lives BEFORE Barbarossa. The rest is, I'll admit, a question of assigning guilt, but I'll claim that he was responsible for far more Russian deaths than Hitler. 25 million Soviet citizens died between 6/22/41 and VJ-Day.

And why shouldn't one man be responsible for that many atrocities? Especially when he lived by the axiom that "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic"?

And he lived on (in brutal command) to 1953...

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

ORIGINAL: Terminus


Stalin's total "body count" (sorry for the crassness) will never be known, but is probably somewhere between 50 and 60 million. Hitler was a member of the Vienna Boy's Choir in comparison...

The total world population in 1945 was 2.2 billion. There is no way that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of nearly three percent of the entire world's population (that's if he was responsible for the deaths of 60 million people). [This isn't mean to minimize what Stalin did.]

Wiki says The Great Purge resulted in between 600K and ~2million deaths.

Holodomor, the word for the Soviet 1932-33 Famine in Ukraine (which arguably was semi-orchestrated by Stalinists as a way to suppress Ukrainian nationalism) is said to have cost between 2.6 and 10 million lives.

Official Soviet figures for Gulag deaths are in the 1m ballpark.

Just those three aspects of Stalins regime gets us up to a min number of about 6 million and a possible high of 13 or 14 m over a span of 10 or 20 years.. But yeah, 50 or 60 million seems high.

You're trusting Wiki and official Soviet figures? Ooookaaayyy...

ORIGINAL: Terminus

You're trusting Wiki and official Soviet figures? Ooookaaayyy...

'Uncle Joe'! [:D]

What makes you think I'm "trusting" them. I quoted them. Other sources might indicate slightly different numbers. The truth is liable to be somewhere in the middle of an array of reasonable estimates. Admittedly, any official Soviet numbers are liable to be highly problematic.
 
On wiki accuracy and credibility
 

 Nature surveyed more than 1,000 of its own authors about their use of encyclopedias. More than 70 percent of respondents said they consult Wikipedia on scientific topics, and more than 80 percent found Wikipedia’s coverage of a topic, relevance of information, accuracy and timeliness to be "Satisfactory" or "Excellent." Nature also encouraged its readers to help improve Wikipedia entries on topics where they have expertise.

 
If I'm curious about something, the first place I look is wiki. I might then follow up with a book or other websites. For a hobby like wargaming that is about as far as I feel I need to go. If I were a game dev or modder, I might go a step or two beyond that.
 
If it is a topic that is central to my professional research work then wiki would probably not even be consulted in the first place, although even there, I might use it just to get a quick rundown on something unfamiliar.

I respect Wiki tremendously, but it's still like quoting National Geographic on a thesis.

I'm not of a mind to go digging into it right now, but I doubt those three episodes cover the first 20 years adequately. And the official Soviet figures are not credible and would only serve to skew any 'somewhere in the middle' ball-parking you might wish to do.

Besides, Anthropoid, shouldn't your primary source be evilpedia or something like that? [:'(]