Too soon to start the kids on Panzer Corps?

[Kamerer]

Her great-great grandfather was a tanker under Rokossovsky in the Byelorussian Front. She's only four but I am getting her into the swing of things early.

[KeldorKatarn]

Cute. As long as you also teach her that real war is everything but cool, why not?

[robman]

I tried turning my son on to Panzer Corps a year or so ago. He was probably 15 at the time. He and I used to play Memoir '44, until he lost interest in board games, so he understood the basic ideas. His verdict, after playing some of the tutorial: "It's really hard and the scenarios go on for too long." Who was I to argue?

About a month ago he tried to teach me to play the card game Magic. I gave up. It was really hard and the games went on for too long.

[KeldorKatarn]

Hehe, yeah these kind of games need a kind of patience that youth usually lacks. But hey, that's what we old folks are all about. And patience and taking the time to enjoy things after all makes it all worthwile, be it wargames, sex or a good wine

[LandMarine47]

My old man had me reading "The Art of War" at around 5. We're in the same boat

[Bez89]

haha that's good reading for a 5 year old

[Bez89]

haha that's good reading for a 5 year old

[LandMarine47]

haha that's good reading for a 5 year old

He drilled me from then on until I knew every single engagement of ww2 by heart. Including casualties. To be honest half the time I only read the caption under the pictures

[Kamerer]

Her Mother wanted me to read her "My Little Pony" at bedtime. I suggested I would happily read to her, but we'd do the "Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman. Her mom said she'd take care of the reading. I consider it a considerable tactical victory on my part.

The air museum we were at also has a working T-34/85 and a German 88. Next summer when they roll those out we'll go back.

[KeldorKatarn]

Guns of August is a nice book. A little bit one sided though which one should keep in mind when reading it for historical research.

[Kamerer]

True. I've read most her books and as nice pictures of events, they are fun. But not at all seriously done. Her lack of professional training shows at all times. Now for an interesting different take on origins of WWI, I recently read:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ ... -world-war

Russian Origins of WWI by McMeekin. Has annoyed the heck out of many by pointing out how little they looked at the whole picture. I never bought the "it's all Germany's fault" western line on the subject myself.

[LandMarine47]

True. I've read most her books and as nice pictures of events, they are fun. But not at all seriously done. Her lack of professional training shows at all times. Now for an interesting different take on origins of WWI, I recently read:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ ... -world-war

Russian Origins of WWI by McMeekin. Has annoyed the heck out of many by pointing out how little they looked at the whole picture. I never bought the "it's all Germany's fault" western line on the subject myself.

Stuff like that lead to the Second World War. Taking away an empires colonies then smashing their economy is the ultimate humiliation. No wonder someone like hitler came to power in Germany. Same situation with Russia, but different in the same way.

[KeldorKatarn]

That kind of history mangling has always going on. I like e.g. how people blamed germany for violating the neutrality of Norway when they did it to prevent the british from doing exactly the same. Or how the Germans occupied the Netherlands and Denmark to secure the north sea access when at the same time the Allies occupied Iceland and Iran for their own strategic reasons. War is never that simple and the first world war broke out because Europe consisted basically of nothing but a bunch of power hungry empires, some of them calling themselves democracies. None of the major countries in 1914 had anything against a new war, they all just wanted to make sure they would come out as the victors. And they all were naive enough to believe such a war could be won within a few weeks, then spend 4 years throwing innocent men into a meat grinder, unwilling to stop the slaughter until all countries were completely ruined and their economies were nearly wrecked and russia was so badly damaged that a revolution started with all known negative results after that.

But hey, wasn't this about kids? At least our kids will, hopefully, never have to see such a major war ever again. It's soon going to be 100 years after WW1 started too... amazing.

[Front242man]

My first post.

My 5 year old daughter flies planes in WarThunder and is just starting to get interested in Panzer Corps. She's good at puzzles, airhockey, and board games so I think it will help develop strategic thinking.

Chris
Atlanta, GA, USA

[LandMarine47]

That kind of history mangling has always going on. I like e.g. how people blamed germany for violating the neutrality of Norway when they did it to prevent the british from doing exactly the same. Or how the Germans occupied the Netherlands and Denmark to secure the north sea access when at the same time the Allies occupied Iceland and Iran for their own strategic reasons. War is never that simple and the first world war broke out because Europe consisted basically of nothing but a bunch of power hungry empires, some of them calling themselves democracies. None of the major countries in 1914 had anything against a new war, they all just wanted to make sure they would come out as the victors. And they all were naive enough to believe such a war could be won within a few weeks, then spend 4 years throwing innocent men into a meat grinder, unwilling to stop the slaughter until all countries were completely ruined and their economies were nearly wrecked and russia was so badly damaged that a revolution started with all known negative results after that.

But hey, wasn't this about kids? At least our kids will, hopefully, never have to see such a major war ever again. It's soon going to be 100 years after WW1 started too... amazing.

Trust me we have a UN in place to stop that! A WW3 will most defiantly involve Nuclear Arms. But hey today's kids don't have to worry about that! Most warmongers are either
A. To small to pose a threat or
B. Already in a revolution!
So what do you think was worse? WW 1 or 2? In my opinion it was WW1 due to the hellish war conditions and poor medicine at the time. In WW 2 you could counter a trench line with Tanks and Aircraft. Exactly why France and Britain were steamrolled during the French 1940 Blitz.

[KeldorKatarn]

WW2 was an 'ok' war until about 1942. Then all the political stuff happened, the death camps started up, the situation in the east got worse, then the uboat war took a turn for the worse and the Ubootwaffe lost a lot of men, then the US involvement was felt and the air war on German civilians started which made things a lot worse. germany tried to counter that with V1 and V2 attacks on civilian targets in Britain, then Stalingrad happened... I think until 1942 the war was pretty ok'ish in terms of losses and cost for the civilians, but after that the war became a lot worse than WW1. Also in terms of what it did to people. The Americans started routing up Japanese in the US, packing them together in camps, the Jewish deathcamps, the kills in the occupied territories in the east... and even after the end of the war, still rapes and murders of German women by allied soldiers who hated german guts by that time... that war really didn't change people for the better at all. WW2 was also a lot worse since it had even worse long term consequences than WW1 did. After all a direct result was the splitting up of three countries, China, Germany and Korea, of which two still last to this day, a over 4 decades long cold war which nearly turned into a war that would have destroyed humanity at several points, and other very difficult long term repercussions that are felt throughout the war across the world.

As a German I can certainly say WW2 was worse. Since I can feel the hatred a lot of people still have for Germans to this day. And even if it isn't hatred, most people abroad still have that WW2 picture of Germans in their head. Not easy. Not to mention that pretty much no major city in germany has any older buildings in large concentration left since all that was bombed to the ground. So a lot of architecture is lost forever. Cologne, Frankfurt, Dresden and a lot of other cities are completely new cities nowaday, not one of them looks the way it looked before WW2.

I guess that is also a reason why a lot of Germans that I know only shook their head after 911. As horrible as it was, a lot of people felt that the American reaction to, quote "One building being lost" was a little exaggerated considering Germany once lost every major city it had completely. So yeah... from a European perspective I'd definitely say, by the end of the war WW2 was definitely by far the worse. both in terms of human loss and long term consequences.

[KeldorKatarn]

I think I killed the thread now =)

[Kamerer]

no, it's a difficult topic and I was thinking of a sensitive response but didn't have the time to respond. Later today...

[LandMarine47]

Yes WW 2 was a greater atrocity than WW1 but that's because of civilian losses. In WW2, both sides began to target civilian target (the blitz for example) so so many more civilians died that in WW1. But I'd rather be a WW 2 GI than a WW1 Doughboy because the life expectancy was so much lower there because if the static trench warfare. So my vote stays with WW1 in terms of military losses. I'm sure most of us here would rather be in Stalingrad 1943 than Verdun in 1916.

[KeldorKatarn]

I'm sure most of us here would rather be in Stalingrad 1943 than Verdun in 1916.

Seriously? So I have to choose between being thrown into an artillery barrage and machine gun fire or slowly starve and freeze to death, thousands of miles from home? I'd go for Verdun to be honest.