History just ate abit of my game Interest.

[TBear]

I know this all sounds wierd, but someone out there might find this interesting.

Since online gaming on a K56 modem i have normaly been playing the Axis side.

In cfs 1 i flew with the JG26 with CFS2 i was with the 6th kokutai in ww2 online (battleground europe) i was right in the mix as a German MP-40 trooper. IL2 back in JG 26 IL 2 pf back with the 6th kokutai. Silenthunter well German or as now in SH IV Japanese.

I never looked at history, normaly just looked at numbers and loved being in 4-1 fights. Yes a small bit of RP but never anything serios, just fun and laughs.

My family lost is share of young and old doing WW2 on both sides, never honnoured them as what they stood for, but never forgot them as soldiers or in one case pilot.

Then last night a friend from the 6th kokutai (realy dont fly that much anymore) invitet my to fly at a lan party. Well cool got the x52-msff2 combo out, polished the old install and headed there. It was a mix of international students and two teachers. Since i was the ranking officer(IL2-1946) retired but kept on roster i was apointet flight lead. We flew some coop missions had some great fun, used abit time as babysitter keeping the rookie pilots alive, but in general just good fun.

Then we began the 10 mission campaign. I jumped into a KI-27 sally bomber just to observe and hit a few bunkers etc. "let me call it the japanese table" At one of the tables 4 Japanese stuedents and one of the teachers also Japanese began get into a hugh argument. Us danes looked over there but couldnt understand anything so i asked the Japanese girl beside me what it was about. She told me that the teacher couldnt understand why the pilots didnt shoot parachutes, and argued with them about some father who was a pilot who told after the war that it was normal and they should do the same.

Before this sounds to "evil" i stop the story here, but trust me i left the lan party with a bad taste in my mouth, and i never go back there....

I have never thought of stuf like this, not even the MG`ing people in lifeboats playing SH games etc...since its something i just never did i just never thought of it. Then this morning i loaeded up SH IV, jumped back to my savegame. I was at the bridge, panning around then i se the flag of my sub, the rising sun, and then just lost all interest. For some reson that lan party and the arguments there have wiped out my interest in Japanese planes and submarines and i feel wierd about it.

Well not sure what to say, might be a wimp....might be a soft sucker, but something have just changed inside of me. Anyone else experienced this sort of thing??

LTbear

[magic452]

I somewhat feel the same way. That's the reason I can't too excited about SH3 and 5. I know it's just a bunch of pixels on a screen and it's just a pretend war but somehow I just can't get into sinking American or British ships.

My parents both came form large families and many served in WWII, some didn't come home. I just have too much respect for the "Greatest Generation" to even think about doing something against them even in a pretend world.

I hold no ill feelings towards modern day Germans or Japanese and most certainly none against anyone who plays those games, it's just how I feel about things. I was born at the very beginning of the war and maybe I'm too close to it. The boat in my siggy was sunk on my birthday.

Magic

[Jimbuna]

Many of todays game players have links to those that served their countries in times of war...I lost my grandfather at sea for example but the one thing I keep foremost in my mind is the fact that reality and gameplay are two entirely different entities.

[TBear]

Many of todays game players have links to those that served their countries in times of war...I lost my grandfather at sea for example but the one thing I keep foremost in my mind is the fact that reality and gameplay are two entirely different entities.

Se that is how i always have kept it apart....but as statet in my post.....this have come sudently........its just wierd.....

[Torplexed]

I remember having similar qualms when I first got interested in wargaming as a kid. Then I found out the vast gulf between any game no matter how sophisticated and the real thing. It's sorta like saying taking the black pieces in a chess game makes you in league with the "dark side". I'd be more worried about people who start to ape fanatical military behavior in real life than those who play a side associated with it. I think you'll find there are those crazies out there who have a "shoot the parachutists" attitude no matter what nationality they play in a simulation.

[Catfish]

Shooting at parachutes, i think it was some "Taffy" Jones who openly supported that. I am sure that "it" was done all sides, however few openly spoke about it. It certainly was forbidden under the Geneva convention, just like shooting at castaways, at sea.

Since this is a Sub forum:

Against common perception german submarine crews never shot at castaways, with one exception towards the end of the war (KLt. Eck).

There are certainly "exceptions", like when a castaway still shoots at his adveraries, or tries to blow them up with a hand grenade, as some japanese are said to have tried. So their shooting is said to have been "correct". I think it also was pure hate for whatever reason, and propaganda.

When an Entente pilot was shot down at the wrong side in WW1 and managed to land, he drew a pistol and shot at some soldiers coming to arrest him - he was then also shot. This man is considered a hero, and books were written about him. I do not think a japanese officer trying that as a castaway would be considered a hero ?

It always depends upon your side of the salient ..


Anyway i have never shot at parachutes even in a sim, and i still don't shoot at smoking or disabled planes that are obviously finished or trying to make an emergency landing, in sims. I have no idea what i would do in reality, but fortunately this question never arose.

Greetings,
Catfish

[Oberon]

The Japanese attitude to war through the Bushido code is so alien to the western world that almost every person has a great deal of difficulty understanding it, even myself.

However, even Hugh Dowding, the leader of the RAF fighter command in the Battle of Britain once remarked that he could understand why Luftwaffe fighters shot at parachutes because all the parachutists had to do was climb into another Spitfire or Hurricane and they'd be back up in the sky the next day ready to shoot him down.

Let's put it another way, when you shoot at a tank, you don't shoot to just remove a tread, you shoot to brew it up. When you shoot at an infantryman, you don't shoot to hit him in the leg, you aim to kill generally speaking, although nine times out of ten it's a case of shooting to hit rather than kill.

There are two schools of thought regarding warfare and the destruction of your enemy. The first is that you must seek to kill every enemy you find, in order to prevent them being used against you once again. This was very much the Japanese viewpoint of WWII and it sought to reinforce their belief that prisoners were the lowest of the low as they had given up on their country by not fighting to the death.
The second school of thought indicates that it is better to wound your enemy than it is to kill him, because then the enemy spends resources trying to heal its men and repair its units, resources which could be used elsewhere on offensive operations.

A lot of it depends on the humanity of warfare, and the rules of war that have been created by the west, rules which the Japanese did not believe in and thus did not sign. Clearly the cold logic still pervades Japanese society to some extent. Certainly it is possible that in the new generation of Japanese we are seeing a generation which did not have the generation before it experience war at its first hand. They do say that as the memories of war fade, so do the lessons which are learnt from it, alas this is obvious in nations such as South Korea and Japan where a more aggressive youth is on the rise. Where will it lead? Who can say.

In conclusion though, I will admit, I have shot parachutes in IL2...I have also collided with them, however I have not shot at lifeboats in SHIII, in fact I usually maneuver alongside them to give aid and directions. I do not condone the act of shooting at lifeboats or parachutes, however I equally understand the cold logic of doing so. I think what it boils down to is a quote from Robert E. Lee:

"It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it."


See Also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8LVlYJ5eJU

[Torplexed]

The Japanese attitude to war through the Bushido code is so alien to the western world that almost every person has a great deal of difficulty understanding it, even myself.



Bushido originally prescribed correct and honorable behavior towards one's enemies as a manifestation of one's own honor. Under the Japan military regime that developed in the 1920s and 1930s it was warped and twisted into something that the samurai wouldn't even have recognized. Surrender had not been considered shameful in Japan's previous wars, nor in the civil wars that shaped the Empire's earlier history. Slowly after World War One it was presented as an unthinkable social and military disgrace. Japan's position as the lone major Asian power outnumbered in a world of white colonial nations perceived as trying to keep Japan down as the low man on the totem pole probably contributed to it. Being outnumbered in the fight in China by an endless supply of Chinese peasant troops probably did as well.

[Oberon]

Bushido originally prescribed correct and honorable behavior towards one's enemies as a manifestation of one's own honor. Under the Japan military regime that developed in the 1920s and 1930s it was warped and twisted into something that the samurai wouldn't even have recognized. Surrender had not been considered shameful in Japan's previous wars, nor in the civil wars that shaped the Empire's earlier history. Slowly after World War One it was presented as an unthinkable social and military disgrace. Japan's position as the lone major Asian power outnumbered in a world of white colonial nations perceived as trying to keep Japan down as the low man on the totem pole probably contributed to it.

I must confess I had a slight niggling at the back of my mind as I typed that that it was incorrect and thank you for correcting me. :yep:

[Torplexed]

I must confess I had a slight niggling at the back of my mind as I typed that that it was incorrect and thank you for correcting me. :yep:

Not too long ago i finished reading Max Hasting's Retribution about the last two years of the Pacific War. What he describes about the training of Japanese soldiers is pretty grim. These men started out as very simple innocent farmers and fisherman. By the time the Imperial Japanese Army is through with them they had been transformed into the human equivalent of vicious pit bulls. As a recruit you could be beaten for anything. Because you were too short or too tall, or because somebody didn't like the way you drank tea. Engaging in bayonet practice on live Chinese captives, and then beheading the rest. No wonder they were so anxious to die in battle. Life was hell. :dead:

[Catfish]

" ... In any army of mankind, from Sumer to Rome, Hitler's SS and US marines, the very first professional action of any drill sergeant is to break a man and make him lose his dignity, to then build him up from the rubble, as an all-obeying killing machine, without the luxury of thinking himself.

The "better" a soldier is, militarily, the less hindrance is left to act like a human being. Because no one would kill someone else without feeling hate, having an at least temporarily fade-out for humanity, or sheer greed. Sometimes this can be also achieved byshizophrenia, by using drugs, or by this warm fuzzy feeling that the of killing of others is good or necessary for your country (implanted patriotism and chauvinism).
Franky, if all people would just say no to killing and would not have been "prepared" in this special way, wars would become impossible. ..."


Regarding killing to be effective, this is not regarded as true today. A lot of wounded men, certainly having lost the ability to fight, are much more a hindrance for the rest of the fighting soldiers, than a dead man. As well the impact at home (hospital, stories, criticism) has also become a major factor. Not pretty, just modern warfare.

[MH]

" ... In any army of mankind, from Sumer to Rome, Hitler's SS and US marines, the very first professional action of any drill sergeant is to break a man and make him lose his dignity, to then build him up from the rubble, as an all-obeying killing machine, without the luxury of thinking himself.

The "better" a soldier is, militarily, the less hindrance is left to act like a human being. Because no one would kill someone else without feeling hate, having an at least temporarily fade-out for humanity, or sheer greed. Sometimes this can be also achieved byshizophrenia, by using drugs, or by this warm fuzzy feeling that the of killing of others is good or necessary for your country (implanted patriotism and chauvinism).
Franky, if all people would just say no to killing and would not have been "prepared" in this special way, wars would become impossible. ..."


Regarding killing to be effective, this is not regarded as true today. A lot of wounded men, certainly having lost the ability to fight, are much more a hindrance for the rest of the fighting soldiers, than a dead man. As well the impact at home (hospital, stories, criticism) has also become a major factor. Not pretty, just modern warfare.


Sorry but it is Bull****.
You can lose your humanity in prolonged warfare but still its very much dependent on values you had been grown on and personal character.
Still some armies/counties follow ethical rules more than others when training soldiers.

[Jimbuna]

The British army for one....learning to obey orders and discipline but that is about it.

[Sailor Steve]

Sorry but it is Bull****
Rules, please. We just had a huge argument about this.

[Task Force]

Personally ive always believed that in war it is either them or you, and if you can keep them from fighting by destroying them (in this case shoot them down) you should do it, as it causes less suffering and trouble for your men/people in the long run. (also helps secure dominance in the war).

[TLAM Strike]

Personally ive always believed that in war it is either them or you, and if you can keep them from fighting by destroying them (in this case shoot them down) you should do it, as it causes less suffering and trouble for your men/people in the long run. (also helps secure dominance in the war).

Indeed, the primary aim of war is to disarm the enemy, that is achieved by destroying their armed forces, occupying their land, and forcing their government to concede to terms. To fail at any one of these three points is the prolong the conflict for both sides.