Quote:
Originally Posted by Sauf
Our chocos were the first to stop the japs, case you dont know chocos were schoolkids and shopkeepers, rest of our army was busy holding Tobruk, which we managed for 8 months before handing over to the Brits, correct me if i'm wrong but didnt Rommel take it 2 weeks later?
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I guess you are Australian or from NZ then and yes, that's some pretty impressive stuff. But just for the sake of historical accuracy and to give you something potentially interesting to read about (i'm usually a "trivial pursuit player" type of person when it's about history, so i might as well share what i've found out

), the first commander to ever vanquish the IJA was, wait for it.........Georgy Zhukov
Yup, i know, totally unexpected for me since i thought he fought all his battles in the west, i was surprised the first time i read about this too. The wikipedia article is actually quite good, you can have a look here if you are interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol
This battle also marked the first fighter/bomber offensive in the history of the Soviet air force. Due to who the opposing armies/countries were, the presence of certain high-profile-to-be figures like Zhukov, plus certain ramifications that affected WW2 (pacifying the Manchurian front left the Soviet Union free to proceed with the non-agression pact with Germany and the partitioning of Poland that sparked WW2 in the first place) some people consider it "the only ww2 battle that was fought before the start of ww2".
In that sense, one could say that unknowingly setting the cogs in motion in such a way makes Zhukov qualify as a commander that both helped start WW2 by winning in Khalkhin Gol and helped end it when he invaded Germany. The paranoia of history in action
I'm going to shut up now and let you all get back on topic about release dates