I've been reading Jean Edward Smith's "Eisenhower in War and Peace", and he mentions that Courtney Hodges suffered a nervous breakdown while commanding the US First Army during the Battle of the Bulge and implied that Gen Hodges was nowhere to be found as the Germans mounted their offensive across Ardennes.

Unfortunately, he doesn't really go into detail about what happened at First Army HQ. Just how bad was Hodges' breakdown? How did a former enlisted senior commander highly decorated multiple times for personal valor in combat (including a DSC and a Silver Star) completely shit the bed under pressure? Why did Eisenhower and/or Marshall not relieve him of command?

Smith is pretty brutal with his assessments with the failings of other American generals (particularly Lloyd Freedendal, Mark Clark, and Leonard Gerow), so I'm a little perplexed as to why he spared Hodges.

TL;DR

Made all-time hometown rosters with original 30 NBA teams + 25 new teams to split populated areas and big teams (spreadsheet + map)

Player Pool and Team Pool

I used the top 969 players who have at least 10000 minutes played in their career.

Why 10000 minutes played? Because that's the lower standard set by Basketball-Reference to get on their ABA career leaderboard (15000 MP for NBA). I added George Mikan, because even though he hasn't played enough minutes, he's featured in All-Time ESPN NBARank and Bill Simmons Hall of Fame Pyramid.

I started off with the current 30 teams. To split up the Lakers and Clippers, I gave the Clippers their proposed Inglewood site.

As I looked at the map of player hometowns, I realized that there were:

• some areas that had a lot of players, but few close NBA teams
• some areas that had bloated rosters with too many players

Based off city population and arena size, I added 25 new teams.

• I obviously had to give Seattle their team back
• Birmingham, North Little Rock and Shreveport helped to split up the South
• Pittsburgh and St. Louis were big cities without teams
• Berkeley added to siphon off San Francisco
  • if I add Oakland, it takes away too many players
• Anaheim and Westwood added in Southern California (Clippers & Lakers)
• Winston-Salem and Raleigh to pare down Charlotte
• Lansing to prune Detroit
• 2nd Atlanta team in suburb of College Park
• 2nd Washington team and Baltimore
• 2 more teams in Chicago (Rosemont and South Side) + a team in Gary
• 2nd Indiana team + Louisville & Lexington
• 2nd Philadelphia team in suburb of Wynnewood
• 3 more teams in the New York Area (Newark, Queens and Long Island)

The Method

I started off gathering hometowns due to this fantastic database by Reuben Fischer-Baum ([original article source here](https://deadspin.com/infographics-where-do-pro-basketball-players-come-from-5132615

Do your worst!

This is my head-canon that I've thought about a fair bit for a Pacific States Victory.

I've already posted this in the comments of another thread but it didn't get much attention so I thought it was worth posting here.

The Siege of Chicago - 1939-1940

In this scenario the AUS has a very strong start to the war, breaking the federal corridor, stopping the Syndicalists southern advance and eventually surrounding and taking the well fortified city of Saint Louise. All this while the AUS is being heavily supported by the Germans and so their army begins to take the form of a small core of well trained and well equipped 'panzer' divisions mostly armed with German equipment (Panzer 2's & 3's) which is supported by a much larger mass of different paramilitary forces (Minutemen & Silver Shirts) who plod along after Patton's divisions mopping up encirclements.

After a series of stunning victories for Pattons armoured divisions by spring 1939 they seem unstoppable. Patton now sets his eyes on Chicago and a war winning blow. The attack beings to the North and East of Saint Louis where Pattons spearheads break through the Syndicalists lines and quickly encircle almost the entire army arrayed against them. As the pockets are reduced the tanks begin their mad dash towards Springfield, then Bloomington and finally onto Chicago. Desperately trying to reach the home of the revolution before their enemies can bring in sufficient reinforcements from their other fronts. By the time they reach Chicago's outer suburbs the tanks have far out paced most of their support and can make only probing attacks into the dense urban environment which they know will be so fiercely defended. By the time the AUS forces are ready to make their assualt the CSA has in remarkable time managed to bring considerable numbers of fresh recruits to man the huge number of trenches, bunkers, minefields and hard points they have hastily erected.

The Assualt begins with the infantry attacking the city head on while the armour completes the encirclement of the city. There is particularly heavy fighting for the heights south east of the city, both sides knowing the commanding view they offer is invaluable for the artillery. The fighting for the city itself is brutal and slow. Every street, building and room if stubbornly defended by Men Women and Children, it seems as if the entire city as been given a rifle to fight. The defenders, a mix of Red to the core devoted revolutionaries and civilia

It really does, I swear!

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

They’re on standbi

Buenosdillas

Pilot on me!!

Dad jokes are supposed to be jokes you can tell a kid and they will understand it and find it funny.

This sub is mostly just NSFW puns now.

If it needs a NSFW tag it's not a dad joke. There should just be a NSFW puns subreddit for that.

Edit* I'm not replying any longer and turning off notifications but to all those that say "no one cares", there sure are a lot of you arguing about it. Maybe I'm wrong but you people don't need to be rude about it. If you really don't care, don't comment.

What did 0 say to 8 ?

" Nice Belt "

So What did 3 say to 8 ?

" Hey, you two stop making out "

When I got home, they were still there.

I won't be doing that today!

Kaiserreich Beta 0.17 - ‘Springtime for Kaiser’

Hey everyone! Our next update here, it's not a big one but is rather a huge compilation of bug fixes and some smaller changes. We hope you enjoy it all the same! Now stop memeing, the pretty words are here.

• The KR4 team

Changes

Notable Additions

• The unit limit formula has been fully reworked - it now uses the country’s total population as a base, and then further modifies that value based on the country’s industrialisation relative to its population. The upper caps have been completely removed.

• Removed the militia unit - militias are now represented by infantry division templates with low combat width.

• Restored the resource gain from infrastructure, but at a rate of 5% instead of the vanilla 10%.

• Syndicalist-aligned Social Democrats have been removed. All such paths have been reviewed and moved to full RadSoc or full SocDem.

• Expanded the interactions of the Austrian Military Occupation path with Germany, Poland and the Belgrade Pact - The Brotherhood of Slavs as a faction no longer exists, and its previous members now join the Belgrade Pact instead, calling them into the war against Austria. If Austria loses this war, it then seeks formal integration into the German Empire.

• The Union of Britain’s Republican Army and their high command are no longer a ragtag group of screamy militias.

• Overhauled the Indian portraits and rosters.

• Added support for additional font colours and characters for decisions and tooltips.

• Ongoing rebalancing and speed-up work in the Spanish Civil War, which is now set up to end in 1939 or before in most runs. The Spanish Civil War will now always occur, unless bypassed in Game Rules.

New Focus Trees

• Assyria

• Shanghai

Reworked/Expanded Focus Trees

• Austria - updated military tree

• Denmark - new BM and military trees

• Dutch East Indies - updated military tree

• Ethiopia - minor tweaks to the German-aligned branch

• German East Asia - updated military tree

• Netherlands - partial revamp

• Nordic Federation - revamp

• Norway - minor tweaks

• Siam - minor tweaks

• Sweden - minor tweaks

• Union of Britain - reorganisation and new military tree

• Uruguay - revamp

New Events

• Argentina

• Austria

• Ethiopia

• Romania

• Uruguay

• Shanghai/Legation Cities

• Qing Government

• Shanxi

• Siam

New Decisions

• Austria

• Nordic Federation

• Romania

• Siam

• Uruguay

• Qing Government

New Custom Country Paths

• Bulgaria

You take away their little brooms

This morning, my 4 year old daughter.

Daughter: I'm hungry

Me: nerves building, smile widening

Me: Hi hungry, I'm dad.

She had no idea what was going on but I finally did it.

Thank you all for listening.

There hasn't been a post all year!

It’s pronounced “Noel.”

Why

After all his first name is No-vac

What, then, is Chinese rap?

Edit:

Notable mentions from the comments:

• Spanish/Swedish/Swiss/Serbian hits

• French/Finnish art

• Country/Canadian rap

• Chinese/Country/Canadian rock

• Turkish/Tunisian/Taiwanese rap

There hasn't been a single post this year!

(Happy 2022 from New Zealand)

Nothing, it just waved

Bob

So that I could frequently say, "I am going to walk 5 miles now."

Edit: My most popular post on Reddit! 😀 Thank you for the awards.

Just to clarify, 12345678

Me grabbing a soda from my (what I thought was) half full 12pk...

Notices there's only 2;

Me: "Awe man... This is a damn bird box!" Her: "What the hell does that mean?!" Me: (Pulls both cans out & shows them to her) "It's only got Toucans."

I'm not ashamed to admit the look on her face was glorious.

I was just sitting there doing nothing.