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I think I just had my weirdest dream ever. Not one of those surreal dreams which is strange from start to finish, but a perfectly normal dream with one completely bizarre detail.

We were going to a concert, and walking through the venue to our seats. We? I looked to my left, and saw I was attending the concert with Cliff Clavin from Cheers.

I woke up in terror.
 
It's a little known fact that a dream like that represents a deep seated desire to sit next to Norm and look at Diane.
 
Well, anything is better than 'dog shit sick'.  Rest, gaming, and some episodes of Star Trek TOS will make you feel better!  ;)
 
I just shit three times within an hour.  Apparently, I'm allergic to something in Chinese food, because I also had trouble breathing and a rash.  Yay.
 
Perun said:
Some new Perunology for those inclined.
Click to expand...

Per, interesting read. I know that your piece was meant as a tribute to the resistance but perhaps you and the Wingman are also interested in the active deployment of forces in Norway and Denmark. I humbly confess that most of the following is not written by myself, but taken from Europe at War, 1939-1945 : No Simple Victory, a mighty interesting book by Norman Davies:

An active-deployment indicator does enable the historian to determine the relative weight of successive campaigns, and from that the overall dimensions of operations as a whole.

One needs to know what forces were deployed where, and when, and for how long, and in what strength. As a rough guide, the volume of commitment may be measured in man-months, assuming that 1 soldier fighting for six months is equivalent to 6 soldiers fighting for one month.

If one takes the first campaign of the war, in Poland (1 September-5 October 1939), one finds 800,000 Polish soldiers pitted against 1,25 mllion German soldiers for 5 weeks. This would work out as 800,000 x 1,25 or 1 million man-months for the Poles, 1,25 x 1,25 or 1,56 million for the Germans, and a total of 2,56 million man-months for both sides. It compares with a much higher figure of 9 million man-months for the Finnish Campaign of 1939-40, when 300,000 Finns and 1,2 million Soviets fought each other for 6 months between November 1939 and March 1940.

Active deployment of forces in Europe

Campaign                                          Man-months (millions)

Poland September 1939                                2.56
Finland 1939-40                                          9.00
German invasion of Norway and Denmark 1940  0.04
German Western Offensive May-June 1940       9.00
German-Soviet War 1941-5                        406.00
North Africa 1941-3                                      5.00
Italy 1943-5                                                4.40
Western Front June 1944-May 1945               16.50

Norway and Denmark fell lightning fast (on 9 April 1940 the citizens woke up to find that the Germans had already taken control of their countries), Britain and France were caught flat-footed, and their response was ineffectual. Seven(!) weeks after the initial attack the German defences were much too strong. Narvik would have to be evacuated simultanuously with Dunkirk. Failure in Norway brought down the British government.
 
Although that doesn't count every campaign (Battle of the Atlantic, the various air campaigns, etc), it is completely scary how much more work the Soviets did. A lot of that is because they had no choice but to mobilize 5 men for each German soldier, due to qualitative differences, but they really fought 80% of that war, and a lot of the west doesn't realize it.
 
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Speaking of headaches, I had a really weird dream last night. I don't remember very much, but I must have fucked up big time. At least, in the end I was hunted by ten Germans wearing pike helmets and monocles and driving red tin lizzies, and a fleet of zeppelins. And they were all pretty pissy at me.
 
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