History Channel Monday 9pm EST

[UncleBuck]

Now add the skill level Carnifex. Every time someone beats you to "Burning Jeep" All other players must do a shot. Sounds like a fun game to me.

UB

[Onime No Kyo]

Considering my love/hate relationship with the HC I just have to put in my 2 cents. Granted, the footage matches the topic maybe 50% of the time. But then again, it must be supremely hard to find enough footage to stock a 30 minute show (minus commercials). Heck, even movies have "burning jeeps". Like "Crimson Tide" (one of the best war movies in the last 10 years) had Nam footage spliced in between footage of Chechniya. WWI in Color recycles the same footage over an over, but is still a superbly made and narrated show.

What really pulls my chain, however, is the sensationalism of the thing. The same midget sub show is being billed as "uncovering the last mystery of PH". Give me a break!!![8|] They already had a show (if this is not the same one) where a team of divers went searching for the sub the Ward sank and indeed found it with a hole smack-dab through the conning tower. This was last year.

Also, has anyone seen that show "Command Desicions"? What a bunch of slop. Can I get someone to agree with me that this stuff is made for the Middle School level, if that.

Having said that, they are, or seem to be, trying. That show with videogame animations of ancient battles (the name escapes me) I found to be very entertaining.

[olivier_slith]

well, besides the cheezeness of HC, the point I was trying to make between the lines is Why Americans are so fascinated with Nazis? Look, when I was playing tabletop wargames, I was alwyas intrigued by guys who always wanted to play the Axis side. Never the Allies. One told me one day that it's more challenging. But I always felt this explanation insufficient. It's almost as if those guys would have prefer that the Axis won!

[MengCiao]

Near as I can tell, quasi-historical shows with maps and diagrams that
actually explain what is going on tend to be made by non-American
production units, while stuff that is obviously American-made for the
American market tends to have no sensible content whatsoever even in the case of maps and diagrammatic simulations.

You'd think that the HC could sort of build on its own texts to get better
and better approximations of reality...but most of its expositions seem to rely on an audience with many important mental screws all missing at the same time:

1) they don't know what anything is
2) they still would not know if you told them
3) they think they already know all about everything though apparently they don't know a thing about anything
4) they don't like maps or diagrams
5) they like to think they are getting the final, real story
6) but any deranged set of similar images is the final real story

And that's just part of the problems with the audience the HC assumes.
I hope nobody really is mentally in that assumed audience. It's kind of hard to imagine...but I guess the marketting guys at HC can imagine it:

"Look," the marketting guy says, "Your average viewer is just like me.
They don't know what anything is or where anything is or when anything happened. They are floating in a primordial soup of pure ignorance and they want to be flattered by being told the ultimate secrets about things they have at least vaguely heard of....etc."

"Yeah," says the producer, "but what has anyone ever heard of?"

Marketting guy, " I don't know...let's go look at what we showed last year....there's some chance people might have the ability to remember what they saw last year..."

"Oh I don't know...." says the producer.

[vonmoltke]

Heh. That attitude is not limited to the Hitler Channel MC. You would not believe how many misconceptions about World War II I came away from my government funded education with. When we actually covered World War II, that is. [8|]

[MengCiao]

ORIGINAL: dhennin

well, besides the cheezeness of HC, the point I was trying to make between the lines is Why Americans are so fascinated with Nazis? Look, when I was playing tabletop wargames, I was alwyas intrigued by guys who always wanted to play the Axis side. Never the Allies. One told me one day that it's more challenging. But I always felt this explanation insufficient. It's almost as if those guys would have prefer that the Axis won!

It's a fundamental mystery of the American Psyche. I'm a Texan so I can see the Nazis as definitely bad and very unpleasant since they shot up the Texas 36th (national guard)division pretty bad on several occasions and generally did not behave themselves very well even when it would have been in their own interest...but for many Americans something about the jerries is very appealing. In some ways, if you like being the allies in a war game like I do, this is a good thing since there's always a lot of wannabe jerries to trounce....but it is kind of disturbing, now that you mention it...though I guess I've gotten so used to it that most of the time I don't notice.

But I don't know why Americans find jerry to be particularly intriguing and even appealing. It's a mystery to me.

[Tophat]

Gentlemen,
Please remember so many Americans have only the vaguest notion of history it can make you weep.American interest in the Nazi's or the Imperial Japanese can be attributed partly to the love of the "underdog" along with the media glamorizing of both these regiemes.From my fellow americans I can accept "pig ignorance" as a valid reason for there infatuation with the Axis.I find european pro-Axis sentiment harder to understand and more worrying.
But thats ok.......hate America is in vogue this centuary which is fine,the way things are going someday soon they'll get their wish and the US won't be there for them.Ahhh,to see the look on their faces that fateful day but it'll be a bittersweet ethereal moment in time before the hammer falls on us all.

[Damien Thorn]

ORIGINAL: MengCiao

ORIGINAL: dhennin

well, besides the cheezeness of HC, the point I was trying to make between the lines is Why Americans are so fascinated with Nazis? Look, when I was playing tabletop wargames, I was alwyas intrigued by guys who always wanted to play the Axis side. Never the Allies. One told me one day that it's more challenging. But I always felt this explanation insufficient. It's almost as if those guys would have prefer that the Axis won!

It's a fundamental mystery of the American Psyche. I'm a Texan so I can see the Nazis as definitely bad and very unpleasant since they shot up the Texas 36th (national guard)division pretty bad on several occasions and generally did not behave themselves very well even when it would have been in their own interest...but for many Americans something about the jerries is very appealing. In some ways, if you like being the allies in a war game like I do, this is a good thing since there's always a lot of wannabe jerries to trounce....but it is kind of disturbing, now that you mention it...though I guess I've gotten so used to it that most of the time I don't notice.

But I don't know why Americans find jerry to be particularly intriguing and even appealing. It's a mystery to me.

I'm someone who always plays the Axis side in any WW2 game. One of the reasons I do it is for the challenge. I also do it for the "underdog" reason mentioned above. I, and many people around the world, repsect what the Axis powers were able to accomplish. This isn't limited to Nazis either. In 1904 Japan took on a major Eurpoean power, Russia, and beat the snot out of them. That was the first time a non-White power had done that. It is even moer impressive when you consider that 40 years earlier they were running around with swords and only had limited exposure to gunpower.

In wargames the US is often viewed as a bully because they have all the advantages and they can be clumsy and awkward and STILL usually beat anybody they want. That kind of playing has no appeal to many gamers. Now, if you are talking about playing hte US during the revolutionary war -- I'm all over that. Then THEY were the underdog.

I'm not deluded. I wouldn't have wanted the Nazis to win the war. I wouldn't want to live under their system of government (although I'd take it over communism). I wouldn't mind if they would have been able to have a few more years of success before being defeated though. Wiping out the Bolsheviks would have done the world a lot of good.

The final reason many people play the Axis countries is WW2 games is because they can trace their ancestery back to those countries. Remember, it may be a Nazi government in charge but it is still GERMANY and, if you are of German ancestry you may still want to fight for Germany.

I have a friend who is German. He loves watching the "All Hitler Channel" (we call it that too). He only watches the first half of all the programs though -- just up to the point where the Germans start losing. [;)]

[Tophat]

Sorry,
My comments were not directed at you but for the most part the 50 odd million americans who can't even tell you who the vicepresident is! Also the condescending European/quasi-allies of ours bame America crowd.

[Damien Thorn]

ORIGINAL: Tophat

Sorry,
My comments were not directed at you but for the most part the 50 odd million americans who can't even tell you who the vicepresident is! Also the condescending European/quasi-allies of ours bame America crowd.

Actually, they know who the vice-president is. They make him the main villian in big Hollywood pictures, so I hear. [:@]

I saw a funny bumber sticker yesterday "10 out of 10 terrorists agree... anyone but Bush". [:D]

[tsimmonds]

I like playing the Axis because of the cool-lookin' hardware. Seriously, these are some elegant designs. To wit:

PzKwV
Fw190
Ta152
Bismarck
Various Italian fighters
Scharnhorst
Littorio
Giuseppi Garibaldi
(and who can resist a radar apparatus named "Gufo" (owl)?
Zero
Tony
Mavis
Emily
Shokaku
Taiho
Yamato
Atago
Mogami
Tone
Yugumo
Shimakaze
Akitsuki
I15
and so on....

[Damien Thorn]

I saw on a preview for tonight's show that they have a picture (or statue) of 5 of the 6 men who commanded those midget subs in a meusem in Japan. The only one who's picture is not there is the one who survived and was captured. It shows that things haven't changed much from the days of "die with honor". Poor guy. It's not his fault his boat broke down.

[olivier_slith]

Thanks for the note Damien. Although I agree with you about the Bolsheviks, may be that the Nazis would have been unbeatable if they had managed to stay in Russia. May be you're right about the ancestry. I'm from French ancestry and I enjoy playing Napoleon (even though I realize he destroyed France's supremacy in manpower in Europe from which France never recovered) and hate playing Daladier.

[carnifex]

But I don't know why Americans find jerry to be particularly intriguing and even appealing. It's a mystery to me.

I'll tell you why.

Or rather I will show you:

Not Dangerous


Extremely Dangerous


No Hat! Bald Head!


Super Hat!


Hope this helps you understand [:D]

[Caltone]

ROFL agreed [:D][:D]

[rogueusmc]

That bald head beat 'em though...[:D]

[Onime No Kyo]

Super Hat!

...and you can't forget about his cool goggles.

Ancestry plays a role, sure. I'm Russian and there is certainly something endearing about T-34s. I see WW2 footage from the Russian front of Russian POWs and think that one of them may be my uncle who went MIA in '43.

But I think that the facination with the Wehrmacht revolves around the fact that they were the only truly professional army going at that time. Not the US, not the Russians, not even the Tommies (god bless em) could match that level of competence. You're talking about an army that managed to hold off the Russians for 3 years at something like a 2 to 1 inferiority at best.

The facination with the Japanese is the unfathomable kamikaze effect IMHO. We are stunned by the mere idea of a banzai charge. I mean, were talking "Starship Troopers" here. We have the same facination with the Chinese in regards to the Korean War.

At least that's what I think it is.

[rogueusmc]

As for the war with Germany...if the people in charge in Germany had been as intelligent as the people fighting the war, It would be a different history.
If it had been left to the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe to run the war, at least a good portion of Europe would have German as their official language.
The Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe, for the most part, were very honorable and respectable warriors.

[vonmoltke]

ORIGINAL: rogueusmc

As for the war with Germany...if the people in charge in Germany had been as intelligent as the people fighting the war, It would be a different history.
If it had been left to the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe to run the war, at least a good portion of Europe would have German as their official language.
The Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe, for the most part, were very honorable and respectable warriors.

Sometimes I wonder how World War II would have been different had Germany's resurgence been led by a group representative of the old Prussian order rather than the Nazis.

[carnifex]

You mean like the old Prussian order that ran things during World War I? [:D]