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Lego Battle of Verdun [video]

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Re: Lego Battle of Verdun [video]

#81
post #63
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When were you a child? In the late eightees, I happily played with Lego that had grey swords for knights in grey castles, and pirate themed stuff with brown guns, and cannons that were grey and brown. Lots of green base plates, too.

I assume it was the 70s. During the 80s, Lego included more and more green, brown, and especially grey, and also more and more weapons. First swords and spears for the knights, later muskets for the Pirate theme, and then blasters for Star Wars. They still don't like modern weaponry, though. I'm not sure if they have guns for their cops and robbers. The real military stuff comes from clones/competitors, not from Lego…

Yes this was the 70s. At the tail end of my time there were indeed knights with swords and (checks on google) halberds, and the Space theme guys had little doohickeys that were presumably meant to be ray guns - at least that was how we used them. With hindsight one could see that this was the thin end of a wedge, but contemporary weapons like guns and cannons would still have been very off-message.

Re: Lego Battle of Verdun [video]

#82
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a child, Lego was explicitly and deliberately pacifist in outlook. I remember reading that the colour palette was determined in part by this philosophy - green, grey and brown were verboten, the latter colour completely absent and the first two existing only in limited plate form. Of course manufacturing cost limitations made a restricted set of colours sensible anyway. As a preventative, this was not enti…

When were you a child? In the late eightees, I happily played with Lego that had grey swords for knights in grey castles, and pirate themed stuff with brown guns, and cannons that were grey and brown. Lots of green base plates, too.

Yes of course I should have qualified the colours point by excluding base plates - they were indeed predominantly green and grey. The point though is that these were to denote grass or urban road surface, you couldn't exactly build camouflaged military vehicles out of them!

Re: Lego Battle of Verdun [video]

#83
post #4

"The Battle of Verdun showed the strength and determination of the French, and revealed to the world the chaos and destructiveness of modern war." Based on the jokes from WWII, they must have not recovered that tenacity in time. "We have these gently used WWII French rifles. They've only been dropped once"

No one in Europe makes such jokes, the French fought like lions. Of course, our friends across the pond also think state healthcare is communism, and republicans are “literally” nazis so, I wouldn’t truck too much with such statements.

Many Brits still do I'm afraid.

It's a sad irony to see 'Dunkirk Spirit' being rolled out at a time of crisis, despite it being a rout of the British army. It was a logistical triumph, which no doubt allowed the British army to live to fight another day. But I also consider Dunkirk Spirit to be about standing helplessly on a beach while being machine gunned by German pilots, while 30,000 Frenchmen die, guarding your rear.

Re: Lego Battle of Verdun [video]

#84
post #80

Every year I visit various ww1 battle sites in northern France and Italy. We walk through endless farm lands to find information about certain events. We often stumble upon ammunition and steel scrap. The land is literally filled with shells, bullets, scrapnel everywhere. Some are still live and just brought to the top of the soil by farm tractor machinery. The amount of shells fired at the battle of as Verdun is so…

I am currently born near to Verdun > The amount of shells fired at the battle of as Verdun is so extremely high that you find layers of shells everywhere On the first onslaught on the city, it is estimated the German fired around 2 millions shell on Verdun in two days . [1] It is hard to imagine by today living standards the hell that people lived there. > The land is literally filled with shells, bullets, scrapnel e…

2M shells in 48 hrs is 11.5 shells a second.

Re: Lego Battle of Verdun [video]

#85
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do make such jokes. Not about WW1, though. But the reputation of the French was heavily tainted by their failure to check Germany in the interbellum and the Vichy regime.

Then I hope that you have plenty of jokes about the country whose prime Minister came back from Germany "with peace for our time" in 1938 :)

Of course, however they are all framed as "LOL, look how stupid/naive politicians are" rather than "LOL look how stupid/naive our country was". "Chamberlain" is still used as a shorthand for a politician accepting a deal that no one believes will be upheld.

Re: Lego Battle of Verdun [video]

#86
post #80

Every year I visit various ww1 battle sites in northern France and Italy. We walk through endless farm lands to find information about certain events. We often stumble upon ammunition and steel scrap. The land is literally filled with shells, bullets, scrapnel everywhere. Some are still live and just brought to the top of the soil by farm tractor machinery. The amount of shells fired at the battle of as Verdun is so…

I am currently born near to Verdun > The amount of shells fired at the battle of as Verdun is so extremely high that you find layers of shells everywhere On the first onslaught on the city, it is estimated the German fired around 2 millions shell on Verdun in two days . [1] It is hard to imagine by today living standards the hell that people lived there. > The land is literally filled with shells, bullets, scrapnel e…

Aftermath - The Remnants of War by Donovan Webster[1] is highly recommended and has a section on Zone Rouge.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Aftermath-Remnants-Landmines-Warfare-...

Re: Lego Battle of Verdun [video]

#87
post #3

Lego depicting war is so depressing... (well, except for Lego Star Wars of course, somehow that seems to pass both the corporate and my personal "no way toys!" filters)

When I was a child, Lego was explicitly and deliberately pacifist in outlook. I remember reading that the colour palette was determined in part by this philosophy - green, grey and brown were verboten, the latter colour completely absent and the first two existing only in limited plate form. Of course manufacturing cost limitations made a restricted set of colours sensible anyway. As a preventative, this was not enti…

> Lego was explicitly and deliberately pacifist in outlook

For my part, I remember (in addition to the SW kits) cavalry vs indians kits, full with sabers, rifles and pistol, which we often used with modern-day kits.

Re: Lego Battle of Verdun [video]

#88
I simply cannot imagine how many hours would be required to produce this amazing stop motion film. I just hope it brings in some cash for you. It's incredible how much detail and minute motions there are between images. Bravo to you and your team!

Re: Lego Battle of Verdun [video]

#89
post #84
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am currently born near to Verdun > The amount of shells fired at the battle of as Verdun is so extremely high that you find layers of shells everywhere On the first onslaught on the city, it is estimated the German fired around 2 millions shell on Verdun in two days . [1] It is hard to imagine by today living standards the hell that people lived there. > The land is literally filled with shells, bullets, scrapnel e…

2M shells in 48 hrs is 11.5 shells a second.

(NUMBER OF BARRELS)[(SHOT SEQUENCE TIME/SECONDS)(11.5 SECONDS)]

Re: Lego Battle of Verdun [video]

#90

Every year I visit various ww1 battle sites in northern France and Italy. We walk through endless farm lands to find information about certain events. We often stumble upon ammunition and steel scrap. The land is literally filled with shells, bullets, scrapnel everywhere. Some are still live and just brought to the top of the soil by farm tractor machinery. The amount of shells fired at the battle of as Verdun is so…

Myself and my then GF visited Arras just north of Verdun in 2019. She was a few months pregnant at that stage and in every hotel we stayed, the proprietor warned her to only drink bottled water, including for brushing teeth. The locality got so hammered with poison gas shells, it all seeped into the ground water making it mildly poisonous!! Lovely part of the world, but a sad legacy of military buildups.

What about non-pregnant people?
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