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Thomamelas posted:I'd put it in with gunboats, but maybe with an asterisk. The swiftboats were generally intended for COIN. So they tended to optimize a bit more for speed over firepower. Unlike the Russian artillery boats, they weren't intended to deal with armor at all. They were to harass troop movements along the river and act as a patrol craft. I can see someone arguing that they are too lightly armed for shore bombardment, although some had an 81mm mortar. They also had those rad rear end automatic grenade launchers right? Wouldn't they mostly be fighting an infantry force? Not going to crack a bunker with it but i wouldn't want to be even in a sandbagged hut
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May 25, 2021 23:07
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Milo and POTUS posted:They also had those rad rear end automatic grenade launchers right? Wouldn't they mostly be fighting an infantry force? Not going to crack a bunker with it but i wouldn't want to be even in a sandbagged hut I believe usually but from what I've seen the swiftboats tended to have a pretty wide variety of weapons. And tended to be customized a bit more than the Navy would be happy with.
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May 25, 2021 23:12
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Albert Speer was really the only one who survived who was able to get out of any serious consequences for his actions. He even had a career after getting out of Spandau. SerCypher posted:Albert "Slave labour? What slave labour?" Speer rather famously, and Rudolf Hess. Not to mention operation paperclip. What no. Speer was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment which he served in full, only being released in 1966. He tried to resume his career as an architect but according to wikipedia this ended in failure; he made money from his memoirs but that's hardly a career. While Hirohito avoided any sort of punishment, the same cannot be said for the rest of the government and military of which there were dozens of judgements of higher profile figures such as generals, government officials such as Tojo, and thousands of lower ranking officers were also charged in smaller trials. Some Japanese officers and figures, got off lightly, but not even remotely all.
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May 25, 2021 23:18
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Alchenar posted:Yes. After Normandy and the loss of the French bases the U-Boats are effectively driven completely from the Atlantic. There's a bit of trying to send them around the North Sea but it obviously takes forever and they can't be routed to targets. Yeah, checking Atlantic Nightmare (an okay book, also free in Kindle Unlimited), as well as Wiki's table of losses, Donitz kept sending out U-boats, even when they suffered heavy losses to little effect. By March-May 1943, a combination of more escort ships, long-range search aircraft with radar, code breaking, and better escort tactics turned the tide if favor of the Allies. There were tactical redeployments away from old hunting grounds that had become too dangerous, as well as new technologies like the flak boats, acoustic homing torpedoes, snorkels, and the Type XXIII, but U-boats kept coming until D-Day isolated the French bases, and the Red Army overran the Baltic shipyards.
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May 25, 2021 23:21
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Raenir Salazar posted:What no. Speer was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment which he served in full, only being released in 1966. He tried to resume his career as an architect but according to wikipedia this ended in failure; he made money from his memoirs but that's hardly a career. The comparison was to donnitz, who got 10 years. Speer getting 20 is also rather light when you look at what he did and was responsible for. You're right that I was too flippant about the Japanese trials. I think I was biased looking at it from the perspective of places like Korea, where a lot of the same people stayed on short term as colonial administrators, and were never really punished.
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May 25, 2021 23:54
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I suppose the mentality that sent U-Boats out in 1945 was kinda similar to the British strategic bomber attacks in the early war - your ability to go on the offensive is limited, so any weapon that can give you a win and show that you're "taking the fight to the enemy" instead of constantly being on the defensive has outsize psychological value.
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May 25, 2021 23:58
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Raenir Salazar posted:Some Japanese officers and figures, got off lightly, but not even remotely all. IIRC being a member of the imperial family counted for a lot. Hirohito himself obviously, but there were a number of lesser princes and such that had positions of authority among the armed forces. I recall something about a Prince Someone-or-other who was in command of the army that did all the atrocities in Nanjing, but was never called to account during or after the war.
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May 26, 2021 05:11
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gradenko_2000 posted:If I recall my American bombing campaign against Japan correctly, initially the US tried to fly B-29s at very high altitudes, in excess of 30k feet IIRC - this was supposed to put them way above flak and even fighters. The problem was that bombing accuracy was terrible at this height, and they started running into trouble with winds that would later be identified as the jet stream. No VFT fuze makes hitting things hard and, on a defensive capacity side of things, the Japanese industrial output was wholly inadequate for producing the amount of anti-air batteries compared to Germany. Going by wikipedia numbers, as far as they can be trusted anyways, the Germans built about six times as many FlaK 88's than the entirety of Japanese large-caliber AA guns combined. A not-insignificant portion of those AA guns were obsolete, if not obsolescent. Add to that the difficulties of suppressing bombers at night and its not that crazy that you could find a blind spot in their arsenal to adequately respond to your bombing campaign. Fangz posted:Also you are dodging antiaircraft fire and trying to spot fighters at the same time. The pilot can only do so much to dodge anti-aircraft fire, and spotting fighters is much more a gunner thing. Milo and POTUS posted:Sure but the way it reads makes it sound like identifying it's the problem, hence the looking like a postage stamp Identifying a target can be a problem, but this is much more an issue that concerns adverse weather and/or night time conditions, and is why pathfinders were used.
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May 26, 2021 05:14
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Also I'm really glad someone on twitter did a review of that book because a family friend recommended it to me and the cover instantly threw me off. Namely "A Story Set In War" It just sounds so... fictional. Like it's not trying to take itself seriously, or be based on anything real. Its just a story, guys! I was fibbing the whole time, GUYS!
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May 26, 2021 05:22
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really lame design too
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May 26, 2021 05:27
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quote:The international best-selling author returns with an exploration of one of the grandest obsessions of the twentieth century' The Bomber Mafia is nowhere near the grandest obsession of the twentieth century, and most people would never even have had heard the term. Even in the 1910s and 20s several people were claiming entire wars would be won or lost from the air, and in no way did anyone think it would ever be entirely from it. Yeah, what if we replaced them with brutal clashes in the sky in between brutal bombings of civilians on the ground! *Gladwell cackles maddeningly* Is there a difference between the Bloodiest and the Deadliest thing? Also, every time I read the "follows the stories of", I expect it to suddenly diverge into some nightmare fuel or the supernatural. Wait... this isn't a book on
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May 26, 2021 05:30
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Drach has an interview up with Jon "Shattered" Parshall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN79g34wjQA
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May 26, 2021 12:23
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Hey do we have an A/T approved list of the most decisive battles?
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May 28, 2021 01:00
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Hey there, I have a question about WWII and the battle of Kursk. I've translated the reminiscences of a Soviet army veteran into English, and one part stood out to me, during the battle of Prokhorovka (around July 1943) he was part of an anti-tank unit and describes a morning where a group of Sherman tanks were sent ahead and immediately wiped out by German artillery. I was surprised by this since I thought Sherman's didn't arrive as part of lend lease until 1944. He was very old when he gave the interviews (2015) and died shortly after, so he could just be misremembering, he did stay in the army until 1947. But I'm curious if there's some other explanation, were Shermans deployed around this time, or some other American tank variant? I know British tanks like the Valentine were also used by the Soviet army and apparently Churchills were used at the battle of Kursk. The original interview and the english translation are here if it helps.
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May 28, 2021 06:38
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Baka-nin posted:Hey there, I have a question about WWII and the battle of Kursk. I've translated the reminiscences of a Soviet army veteran into English, and one part stood out to me, during the battle of Prokhorovka (around July 1943) he was part of an anti-tank unit and describes a morning where a group of Sherman tanks were sent ahead and immediately wiped out by German artillery. I was surprised by this since I thought Sherman's didn't arrive as part of lend lease until 1944. He was very old when he gave the interviews (2015) and died shortly after, so he could just be misremembering, he did stay in the army until 1947. 75mm Sherman's started arriving as lend lease in 1943, I believe possibly very late 1942, the 76mm was the one that started arriving in 1944. It's possible the author may have confused M3 Lee's which the Soviets also received for Sherman's but it's entirely possible and more likely there were 75mm Sherman's at Prokhorovka.
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May 28, 2021 07:03
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According to our local expert, M4s were reaching the USSR in small numbers in late 42 and early 43.
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May 28, 2021 07:06
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Thank you, both that's very interesting, especially this part. "The use of M4A2 tanks on the North Caucasus Front in the winter and spring of 1943 was rather rare. The first real use of M4A2 tanks in combat was in the summer of 1943 during the Battle of Kursk. The only unit with these tanks was the aforementioned 229th Tank Regiment. It is usually stated that it fought as a part of the 48th Army, but that is not the case. By early July the regiment was included into the 13th Army, which fought in the north of the salient. The regiment was supposed to support the 148th Rifle Division, but in practice ended up supporting its neighbour, the 74th Rifle Division. The regiment did not take part in the battle for Ponyri, remaining in reserve. The regiment lost 14 tanks burned and 17 knocked out between July 15th and 18th with 117 men lost. The report stated that tanks were chiefly lost after being hit with HEAT shells, which caused ammunition detonation that tore off the tanks' turrets." This might actually be the tanks in question. The date and the cause of destruction are pretty close to the account. I'll update the footnotes. Thanks again.
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May 28, 2021 07:21
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I was listening to a podcast and was a bit surprised by the following transcribed take: "The USS New Jersey was reactivated to go to Vietnam. Bombardment platform, did very well there. Did so well that the North Vietnamese really didn't like her and thus the US said, ok you don't like that, we'll stop doing it. You wonder why the Vietnam war went the way it did, that is it. Because anytime we did something they didn't like, they'd complain and we'd stop doing it." I didn't know of the USS New Jersey's role in the war, but the rest of it seems like a really hot take to me. I'm far from an expert but have done some reading on Vietnam and that seems like a super crazy take to me about why the US lost the war, like borderline head-in-the-sand revisionist, but maybe I'm missing something. Also does anyone know why the New Jersey only did 1 tour?
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May 28, 2021 07:51
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Could North Vietnam have endangered the New Jersey? Did they have anti-ship missiles of any sort? Did China? Checking the Wikipedia, my first question would be how effected the New Jersey really was, firing a few dozen big shells at a time. Could it have been accurate? As I recall, it would have been using the analog FCS, and the spotting planes didn't have GPS obvs.
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May 28, 2021 08:34
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Fangz posted:Drach has an interview up with Jon "Shattered" Parshall That's a good interview overall, and Parshall also drops some shade over Guadalcanal-related shenanigans. He also says he's writing a book on 1942 and has been for 11 years. He'd better finishes, because I'll raise his shade and bind it to a typewriter to get it finished if I have to. e. LRADIKAL posted:Checking the Wikipedia, my first question would be how effected the New Jersey really was, firing a few dozen big shells at a time. Could it have been accurate? As I recall, it would have been using the analog FCS. Analog FCS with radar input could get first salvo straddles at 20+ miles. They we shockingly sophisticated pieces of equipment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HoSh3n3CaI mllaneza fucked around with this message at 08:41 on May 28, 2021 |
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May 28, 2021 08:36
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Yes Vietnam was lost because Americans had no ability to put ordnance on target. It was a huge resource drain, and ended up on the cost cutting train. It didn’t offer anything significant in the war that airplanes didn’t do, as far as I remember. It was neat, and a nice to have, but not able to justify its massive cost. It did fine for the tour it had, but it’s a collection of bunkers, some buildings, sporadic trucks and cars, and fortifications on its target tally. Pretty underwhelming for a battle ship and it’s massive crew.
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May 28, 2021 08:39
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Makes sense I figured it was some cost/effectiveness reason. It was the first time I'd heard America lost because they bowed down to North Vietnamese complaints though, that caught me off guard. I don't know if I can find a charitable explanation that actually explains what he meant, but it seemed bonkers to me.
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May 28, 2021 09:05
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Carillon posted:Makes sense I figured it was some cost/effectiveness reason. It was the first time I'd heard America lost because they bowed down to North Vietnamese complaints though, that caught me off guard. I don't know if I can find a charitable explanation that actually explains what he meant, but it seemed bonkers to me. "We were stabbed in the back by the politicians"
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May 28, 2021 09:23
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mllaneza posted:That's a good interview overall, and Parshall also drops some shade over Guadalcanal-related shenanigans. He also says he's writing a book on 1942 and has been for 11 years. He'd better finishes, because I'll raise his shade and bind it to a typewriter to get it finished if I have to. They're pretty cool, but you have to tack a bunch of electronics on to integrate them, which I'm not sure how possible that was during that time.
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May 28, 2021 09:55
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I assume it's in reference toWikipedia posted:Persistent rumors have suggested that the real reason that New Jersey was decommissioned had to do with the Paris Peace Talks, some source suggest that the Vietnamese would not meet with U.S. representatives unless New Jersey was removed from the gunline, other sources suggest that the Vietnamese offered to meet with representatives of the United States if New Jersey was returned to the states. No compelling evidence exists to support or refute these claims.
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May 28, 2021 09:56
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The New Jersey's effect on the war in Vietnam is, yeah, very much a battleship fanboy's poo poo That Didn't Happen, though the navy did have a fairly significant effect on how the war went. Before direct, large-scale US intervention, about 75% of the supplies going south actually went via the sea, and the US had effectively interdicted that route by 1966, making the Ho Chi Minh trail more important. This was the impetus behind opening up the port of Sihanoukville in Cambodia for the North Vietnamese and expanding the trail's capacity. A look at the river system of South Vietnam is a good indication as to why- it was easier to supply the areas with strongest communist support(the coastline and the IV corps area) by sea than land, and it's more efficient to run a covert supply system using small ships as transports than with other methods.
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May 28, 2021 10:30
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Fangz posted:I assume it's in reference to I mean if that's true that's an incredibly easy concession to make. Obviously it isn't true.
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May 28, 2021 11:15
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Carillon posted:Makes sense I figured it was some cost/effectiveness reason. It was the first time I'd heard America lost because they bowed down to North Vietnamese complaints though, that caught me off guard. I don't know if I can find a charitable explanation that actually explains what he meant, but it seemed bonkers to me. "Why don't we use our superweapons and kill all of the enemy" seems to be a recurring thing ever since America developed superweapons.
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May 28, 2021 11:46
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mllaneza posted:Analog FCS with radar input could get first salvo straddles at 20+ miles. They we shockingly sophisticated pieces of equipment. I’ve actually played around with that machine. Years ago my son’s Cub Scout troop spent the night on the New Jersey and they let us fiddle with the dials of the controller. It is indeed a very sophisticated, complicated, and robust piece of equipment
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May 28, 2021 13:13
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Analog fire control computers are incredibly fascinating, there are several examples at the Nauticus museum in Norfolk next to the BB Wisconsin.
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May 28, 2021 13:48
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Baka-nin posted:Hey there, I have a question about WWII and the battle of Kursk. I've translated the reminiscences of a Soviet army veteran into English, and one part stood out to me, during the battle of Prokhorovka (around July 1943) he was part of an anti-tank unit and describes a morning where a group of Sherman tanks were sent ahead and immediately wiped out by German artillery. I was surprised by this since I thought Sherman's didn't arrive as part of lend lease until 1944. He was very old when he gave the interviews (2015) and died shortly after, so he could just be misremembering, he did stay in the army until 1947. Shermans began arriving in very limited numbers in late 1942. They first saw battle in the Kuban in the spring, Kursk was their second major battle. There was only one regiment worth of tanks there, and it wasn't at Prokhorovka, it was at Maloarkhangelsk, on the other end of the salient. However if he didn't actually fight at Prokhorovka he could have witnessed such an event: the Shermans were sent to counterattack height 255.6 without infantry cover on July 11th and were forced to retreat with three tanks burned out and nothing to show for it.
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May 28, 2021 14:01
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Lou Takki posted:Analog fire control computers are incredibly fascinating, there are several examples at the Nauticus museum in Norfolk next to the BB Wisconsin. What?? I was just there and I was hankering to see an analog FCS. Where were they?
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May 28, 2021 14:29
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Another fun thing on the New Jersey. They mark the spot on the bridge where Halsey had a tantrum and threw his hat down after he got that message from Nimitz asking where his task force was during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
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May 28, 2021 16:00
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Scratch Monkey posted:Another fun thing on the New Jersey. They mark the spot on the bridge where Halsey had a tantrum and threw his hat down after he got that message from Nimitz asking where his task force was during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. That's incredible
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May 28, 2021 16:35
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Is it one spot or two? hats can bounce depending on the force and angle.
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May 28, 2021 16:56
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Uncle Enzo posted:What?? I was just there and I was hankering to see an analog FCS. Where were they? It's been a couple years so hopefully they didn't get rid of them but I remember seeing them on the top floor after the super long escalator.
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May 28, 2021 17:01
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Scratch Monkey posted:Another fun thing on the New Jersey. They mark the spot on the bridge where Halsey had a tantrum and threw his hat down after he got that message from Nimitz asking where his task force was during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. "The world wonders" is an amazing burn and I bet Nimitz wished he'd done it on purpose
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May 28, 2021 23:43
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Crosspost since I think it's relevant Iain posted:Not sure if this is right the place or the resources thread to post this since it is limited time, but Ancestry and Fold3 are offering free military records searches until Monday.
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May 29, 2021 06:06
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Milo and POTUS posted:Crosspost since I think it's relevant
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May 29, 2021 06:41
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Milo and POTUS posted:Crosspost since I think it's relevant This is great, thank you. My grandpa never talked about his time in the Navy - I think he felt bad about being removed from combat duty after they found out he was actually 15. He's listed in the records I found as having no home address, which is interesting. Chamale fucked around with this message at 07:16 on May 29, 2021 |
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May 29, 2021 07:09
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