Author Topic: Would you like to date a tank? You can now do it in a Japanese game.  (Read 12503 times)

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Offline TheContrarian

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Re: Would you like to date a tank? You can now do it in a Japanese game.
« Reply #45 on: April 13, 2016, 04:04:17 pm »
Yeah, all pretense of being "good" or "a hero" goes out the window when you bring out the atomic bomb, mate. That's "a marginally lighter shade of grey" at best.

I never got the sentiment behind this idea.

It's not functionally any different from using ordinary bombs to basically raze a city.  Just ask the survivors of Coventry, London, Hamburg, Dresden or Tokyo how glad they were not to have an a-bomb dropped on them.

You could even say that the above were in some ways worse because of the tactics employed.  An atomic bomb is indiscriminate, you can't (for example) fill your first wave of bombers with incendiaries in the hopes of starting fires and drawing the emergency services out onto the streets before the rest of your bombers arrive.


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Offline Ultimate Paragon

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Re: Would you like to date a tank? You can now do it in a Japanese game.
« Reply #46 on: April 13, 2016, 04:25:44 pm »
"Less Bad" != "Good"

But by the same token, controversial acts don't necessarily make you evil.  If you'll remember, Abe Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, but that doesn't make him a tyrant.

Offline Eiki-mun

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Re: Would you like to date a tank? You can now do it in a Japanese game.
« Reply #47 on: April 13, 2016, 05:03:26 pm »
Well, this topic blew up far more than I expected. Unfortunately I'm still at work so I can't formulate a proper reply, so if you're willing to wait, Conty and Ultie, I'll have a proper response this evening. In the meantime, after further thought, I'll withdraw the point about the atomic bombing. I was mistaken about a few relevant points related to it, and I feel my position is secure enough with the internment camps and the firebombing of places like Dresden and Hamburg anyway.

What is my position? Allow me to clarify it: World War II was not a fight of the brave, heroic white knights of America against the evil, vile krauts and japs. America was, like most countries involved in the war, guilty of some rather damning war crimes itself.
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Re: Would you like to date a tank? You can now do it in a Japanese game.
« Reply #48 on: April 13, 2016, 05:26:52 pm »
Yeah, all pretense of being "good" or "a hero" goes out the window when you bring out the atomic bomb, mate. That's "a marginally lighter shade of grey" at best.
Do you have a better way to end the war? Conventional bombing was both bloodier (napalm really does a number on those wood and paper houses a lot of the Japanese lived in at the time, as it turns out) and didn't have near the same shock value as nukes, invasion would've made conventional bombing look like a scraped knee and blockade would've condemned hundreds of thousands of people (if that) to death by starvation instead of bombs. Most importantly, every one of these options would've resulted in far higher allied casualties. That and dragged the war out even longer. Operation Downfall for example was estimated to force a surrender late 1947 at the very earliest. Honestly, nukes were by far the least bloody way to end the war. Not just for the allies but also the Japanese.

Not that I'm saying America or any other WWII combatant were "the good guys", per se. Just that that's the reality of war. Whatever you do, people are going to die and far more are going to suffer.

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Re: Would you like to date a tank? You can now do it in a Japanese game.
« Reply #49 on: April 13, 2016, 05:34:09 pm »
I'm not saying it wasn't effective, or that it didn't prevent casualties. But like Eiki, I despise people thinking of thinking of the USA as "the good guys" because of it. Was it effective? Yes. Did it end the war? Yes. Was it "heroic" or "good"? Like you said, no. It was only (arguably) less evil.

Art Vandelay

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Re: Would you like to date a tank? You can now do it in a Japanese game.
« Reply #50 on: April 13, 2016, 05:57:32 pm »
I'm not saying it wasn't effective, or that it didn't prevent casualties. But like Eiki, I despise people thinking of thinking of the USA as "the good guys" because of it. Was it effective? Yes. Did it end the war? Yes. Was it "heroic" or "good"? Like you said, no. It was only (arguably) less evil.
Then why is it such a terrible thing in your eyes compared to everything else they did? Of all the actions you could've chosen that sends "all pretense of being "good" or "a hero" goes out the window", why did you go with the thing that ended the war quickly largely through shock value alone? As I said before, the US also levelled Tokyo with napalm, and that had around the death toll of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Why, for example, is that not the thing that proves the Americans weren't "the good guys"?

Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: Would you like to date a tank? You can now do it in a Japanese game.
« Reply #51 on: April 13, 2016, 06:03:25 pm »
Japan and World War II have a relationship almost as weird as America's obsession with WWII.

Nowhere is more obsessed with WWII than Britain, surely?  It's almost impossible to get through a day without encountering some mention of or reference to it.  That's not even much of an exaggeration.

Well it *is* the last bit of history before everything got communistic and boring.

Late 20th century history is dreary as fuck.
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Offline Askold

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Re: Would you like to date a tank? You can now do it in a Japanese game.
« Reply #52 on: April 14, 2016, 01:16:24 am »
Remember that Japan was probably ready to surrender before Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One of the words in their reply was mistranslated and "no comment" on the demand to surrender became"that is not worthy of discussion."

Some of their army was ready to fight to the death as you could see from their attempted coup, but many knew that they had lost and were against useless bloodshed.
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Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: Would you like to date a tank? You can now do it in a Japanese game.
« Reply #53 on: April 14, 2016, 03:52:25 am »
In WWII terms like "collateral damage" weren't in common currency, there weren't too many citizens in any of the parties involved who were going to put up much of a fuss over the mass slaughter of enemy civilians and plenty who would have cheered it on.

This doesn't make the tactic of bombing civilian populations to terrorize them any less noxious, it certainly doesn't excuse testing new weapons by blowing up noncombatants with them.

Offline Ultimate Paragon

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Re: Would you like to date a tank? You can now do it in a Japanese game.
« Reply #54 on: April 14, 2016, 09:36:13 am »
In WWII terms like "collateral damage" weren't in common currency, there weren't too many citizens in any of the parties involved who were going to put up much of a fuss over the mass slaughter of enemy civilians and plenty who would have cheered it on.

This doesn't make the tactic of bombing civilian populations to terrorize them any less noxious, it certainly doesn't excuse testing new weapons by blowing up noncombatants with them.

Okay, that's just factually incorrect.  Hiroshima was an industrial center that housed the 2nd Army and its command center, and Nagasaki was a major military port that served as a staging area for attacks on American vessels.

Offline Katsuro

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Re: Would you like to date a tank? You can now do it in a Japanese game.
« Reply #55 on: April 14, 2016, 11:29:39 am »
Hey if we're competing for who was the biggest dickbag during WWII, which we weren't, you can't leave out Britain's carpet firebombing of Dresden.  It's hard to feel much like the good guys after reading about it.  And I mean proper reading about it, not just a cursory glance at the Wikipedia page on it - reading first hand accounts from survivors and that sort of thing.  I have read quite a lot about it as my GCSE History teacher kind of had a thing about Dresden and spent some time covering it and went into much, much detail.  If we'd nuked the city it actually might actually have been far less horrific.

Offline Katsuro

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Re: Would you like to date a tank? You can now do it in a Japanese game.
« Reply #56 on: April 14, 2016, 11:33:10 am »
Just realised things have gotten pretty fucking heavy in here considering the thread started off about a game where you can date a tank.  Let's balance it out with a picture of a kitty in a tiara:


Offline TheContrarian

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Re: Would you like to date a tank? You can now do it in a Japanese game.
« Reply #57 on: April 14, 2016, 12:48:33 pm »
Remember that Japan was probably ready to surrender before Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One of the words in their reply was mistranslated and "no comment" on the demand to surrender became"that is not worthy of discussion."

Some of their army was ready to fight to the death as you could see from their attempted coup, but many knew that they had lost and were against useless bloodshed.

If we can interface with reality for just a moment, Japan's civil situation in 1945 is analogous to Germany's in 1918; the populace had been fed such a ridiculous pack of lies by those in charge that the idea of the war being a lost cause was barely believable.

If you were one of the few survivors of Iwo Jima or Okinawa you may have had enough of a reality check to know the war was lost, but Japan was preparing to defend its' home islands to the last man, civilian or otherwise.

Now, if you want to make the case that it wasn't the atomic bombings that persuaded them to surrender, but the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, you may have more of a point...


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Offline Eiki-mun

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Re: Would you like to date a tank? You can now do it in a Japanese game.
« Reply #58 on: April 14, 2016, 01:05:20 pm »
Apologies for not getting to that reply I promised. I was pretty tired most of the day and by the time I was ready, the forum was on the fritz. Tonight, I promise.
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