Shipbucket

G. Adm. Karl Dönitz seemed to have, according to the trial in Nuremberg, been very staunchly against this kind of behavior and fought to ensure that the Kreigsmarine did not engage in such deceptions... though his very logical and very understandably vague and 'wanting to keep my head' wording of his protest meant that the Allies were able to saddle him with the charge of not respecting the Geneva Conventions.

That being said- I'm very sure that had Herr Hitler been left to his own devices, without men like Dönitz to reign him in, we might have seen such deceptions as the war became desperate. I can appreciate the ship and its design from this standpoint, and have to admit that I like it quite a bit, actually.

This is, in fact, not a fictitious design. These manned torpedoes were actually used to some effect during the Normandy landings. You can read more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neger

Understandably, this would come as a controversial topic on the Shipbucket forum, however, there is a certain historical precedent for it.

Suicide weapons are not what the controversy is about (obviously), but instead the idea of breaking the protection of the Red Cross. Yes, the KM did this on occasion in WW2 (see the Laconia indecent), but it wasn't the center of an operational concept.

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My apologies, I think I have been misinterpreted. I was simply trying to answer KHT's question.

In reference to said controversy, I was speaking of the concept as a whole; the use of suicide weapons, the breaking of the protection of the Red Cross, and the use of the German word "Neger" with its obvious racial connotations. You're quite right, the use of the Red Cross did not reflect a standing KM operational concept, however, it is reflective of certain tactics used during this time period that might be considered underhanded or distasteful, such as the use of disguised merchant raiders, for example.

Maybe I've just had a rather stressful day, but there are so many problems with this that I'm just too plumb tired to even think of where to begin, that your first thought was that someone was trying to sneakily (not subtlety) offend people in the worst way short of graphic depiction, prose, illustrative or otherwise. It deeply offends me, either in someone trying to actually do that, or (in this specific case) someone implying that another member is trying to do that, because it reflects extremely poorly on Shipbucket.

And as for everything else, yes, there are some flaws inherent in how this AU is presented (I hope I didn't sound too much like a dick with that). Maybe I'll get to those later.

I won't comment again on this but I consider that the difficulty here is in stepping over the line between what is possible and justifiable, into what can cause offence. During WWII the Kreigsmarine was generally on a par with allied navies in observing the conventions of war; and indeed, the Laconia incident was an act of exceptional chivalry by any navies standards. I won't comment on nazi ideology, as that is not an issue here; rather, it is in creating an imaginative world in which a nations navy would consider it justifiable to commit a war crime, as in flouting the Geneva Convention. Once we go down this road we can easily have anything posted on the Forum, however repugnant it may be to normal human behaviour. And before we get the 'war is hell' argument from anybody, yes, that's stating the obvious, hence why we still have rules of war. I will not censure this AU, but I need to make it clear that as a moderator I strongly object to it.

Just to clarify, I was offended specifically by how someone thought that "Neger" meant...well, I'm not even going to allude to it in any way, shape, or form because we're (hopefully) old and intelligent enough to figure it out.

I know we went through this nonsense in the CSS Arkansas thread too but this is at least a little different - it's subtly (if unknowingly and ignorantly) accusing someone of racism (plus the accusing post had racist undertones itself) which is simply stupid and disrespectful, and as I said in turn reflects poorly on Shipbucket.

If you don't know what a word means or are unfamiliar with it, look it up. You're already on the Internet as a necessary step towards being here anyway.

Of course it's not the only thing I'm offended by in this thread - namely, the impression that adding 300 feet of fo'c'sle to someone else's drawing constitutes a legitimate engineering effort.

For clarification, most of my post was aimed at KHT's very stupid post, and I am in turn very unapologetic in calling that post very stupid. Because it was. (though I'll also note that, yes, both words have the same root)

...but yes, that last 2% of my post was directed specifically at the results of this page, how I recognize those two ships (the V-1 launcher and the Niobe-redo) as being drawings by other people, how the most significant and meaningful change done to those drawings is that they now have nonsensically long fo'c'sle's and how you stated "well that's how the Dutch built Niobe in my AU!"

Nice sub! Will we see any big liners (i.e., Bremen and Europa or the second Vaterland) converted to troopships, perhaps?

-Matt

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

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I think that may be a tad too thin. Although, I do like the design that you have here.

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