Battle of the web sites

[dandan]

I wasn't actually thinking about whether of not Poland had any choice in the matter, merely the amazing fact that the Poles believed (and to this day many still believe) that the swarms of Russian tanks were thrusting into Poland to help Poland fight off the Germans after Germany invaded in 1939, not meet the Germans in the middle of Poland, have a cup of coffee and scribble on a few maps.
By 1944/5 I'm pretty sure they had a good idea that Stalin was merely a lesser evil, a fact many Polish soldiers with bullets in the back of their heads would have argued had they been alive.

Looking at the Eastern Front, the losses/poor planning in Operation Market Garden were pretty negligible.

[Saucemaster]

Looking at the Eastern Front, military losses in every conflict everywhere look pretty negligible.

[dandan]

I saw a programme about Russian fighter pilots who felt it was not honourable to leave an aerial battle even if they had used all of their ammunition. They did a thing called Turam (written as pronounced, I've no idea if there is an English word for it). This was basically flying into the back of a German plane to chew up their tailplane with your propeller  and then trying to fly what is left of your plane home (presumably it was considered honourable to leave an aerial battle because your plane ceased to fly).
They interviewed a pilot who managed this but he died attempting it a second time.

Everything about Stalingrad is facinating - sending raw Russian recruits over the river to hold a piece of land with no strategic value - merely to keep the Germans interested (often soldiers were sent with no ammunition) while the encirclement was being prepared, the 105-125 000 German prisoners and only about 5000 making it home, Hitler's refusal to allow a withdrawal.