Wasted Efforts

Nov 24, 2010 12:36


     I originally supported the international intervention in Afghanistan.

I've occasionally heard people gripe that we shouldn't be involved in any war, that we shouldn't be so willing to kill other human beings, and that we should think more about the soldiers and civilians who die in wars.

I've always reminded them that that's not ( Read more... )

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catalyst37 November 24 2010, 19:14:23 UTC
German soldiers called us storm troopers?

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steelcaver November 25 2010, 16:21:52 UTC
Yes, although not in English, obviously, and at the time the phrase had different connotations than it does today.

In German, the phrase refers to soldiers trained in infiltration tactics.

Those tactics are standard for infantry fireteams today, but at the beginning of the 20th century mass charges were the normal procedure.

Infiltration was a fairly novel tactic, and shouldn't have worked at all according to previous theories of warfare. So everyone was surprised by how effective and efficient they were when introduced by Imperial Germany during WWI.

Men trained in those tactics were referred to by Germans as Stoßtruppen (Sturmtruppen). The literal translation Stoßtruppen is "assault man" but was mis-translated into English as stormtrooper.

After Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele, it got out that the Germans had begun using the exact same phrase to refer to the Canadian Corps, after Canadian troops used the same tactics against the Germans.

"The Canadians were marked out as storm troops. For the remainder of the war they ( ... )

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