|
http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/eastern-front/8902-soviet-guards-units-please-explain.html "Guards units had a different TO&E from other units of the same type and size. They generally had a higher establishment of life-saving artillery and automatic weapons, a greater basic load of ammunition and, for much of the war, a priority on supply allocations. Personnel in Guards units received a higher pay scale (1 1/2 time the normal scale for officers and 2 or 3 times the normal scale for troops at various times during the war) plus other privileges. Promotion for both officers and NCOs was accelerated in Guards units. Units named to this status added the word Guards to their name and banner, and every soldier added the word Guards before his rank (e.g., Guards Sergeant, Guards Captain, etc.) and got a Guards badge to wear on his tunic pocket. In short, members of Guards units were better paid and better fed, had greater prospects for advancement, and, in any given battlefield situation, were better equipped to survive than members of non-Guards units. On the other hand, they could also expect to be employed in the most difficult and dangerous operations." I'm sure Cyrano will correct me on this, but I'd been under the assumption that Guards units were equipped in the scale that SS units; higher priority, newer/updated gear, etcetera.
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2012 14:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 16:02 |
|
|
Did these Guard advantages carry on into the Cold War?
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2012 14:56
|
|
|
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm100-2-1.pdf http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm100-2-2.pdf http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm100-2-3.pdf
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2012 15:24
|
|
|
baupdeth posted:I'm sure Cyrano will correct me on this, but I'd been under the assumption that Guards units were equipped in the scale that SS units; higher priority, newer/updated gear, etcetera. For a lot of the war Waffen SS units were basically a private army and had gently caress-all for equipment and logistical support. That only really started to change around '42. Even after that they had some pretty major supply issues at times. German military poo poo is always a special case mostly due to the way that political patronage worked in that system. You had everyone trying to carve out their own little political fiefdoms, which leads to all sorts of crazy overlap and internal interference. This is why the SS existed at all (it was Himmler's pet project) and why Goering insisted that the loving Luftwaffe of all organizations have independent infantry units that were armed with specialized weapons that only they had the "right" to field.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2012 16:16
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:German military poo poo is always a special case mostly due to the way that political patronage worked in that system. You had everyone trying to carve out their own little political fiefdoms, which leads to all sorts of crazy overlap and internal interference. This is why the SS existed at all (it was Himmler's pet project) and why Goering insisted that the loving Luftwaffe of all organizations have independent infantry units that were armed with specialized weapons that only they had the "right" to field. The Luftwaffe thing sounds interesting. Any more info on that? Especially about those specialized weapons. It would be interesting to see a TO&E for a Luftwaffe infantry unit.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2012 17:11
|
|
|
LimburgLimbo posted:The Luftwaffe thing sounds interesting. Any more info on that? Especially about those specialized weapons. It would be interesting to see a TO&E for a Luftwaffe infantry unit. The short version is that before the war, when the army was exploring the possibility of airborne operations like just about every other country on the planet, Goering thew a giant loving hissy fit and said that any German airborn units had to be part of the Luftwaffe because they had something to do with airplanes. No compromise here, either - you couldn't have Luftwaffe aircrews flying army dudes over the drop zone, they had to all be Luftwaffe. Since Goering was really good at screaming and crying until he got his way he got handed his own personal little mini-army inside the German airforce. Fast forward to 1941. Germany does a 100% airborne invasion of the Greek island of Crete and, while successful, suffers some loving appalling casualties. They were bad enough that Hitler nixed any future airborne operations and the German airborne units basically became simple light infantry. This is how they operated for the rest of the war. So, you had an entire branch of the Luftwaffe that existed only to be a conventional light infantry force and which operated in conjunction with the regular army. Why the gently caress didn't they just fold the now not-so-airborne into the army? Because politics. It gets even more stupid. Using the same "  b-b-b-but AIRPLANES! " logic the Luftwaffe managed to get (essentially) all AA crews folded into their organization as well. Want to shoot at an airplane? Gotta be in the Luftwaffe to do that. Those famous FlaK 88s? Airforce crews. One little problem: it quickly became really loving apparent that those FlaK 88s were REALLY loving good at blowing up tanks. So, now you had airforce guys and their (mostly) airforce-only AA pieces deploying with the regular army as combo AA/AT units, because the regular 'ol FlaK 88 was designed so that the main gun could depress down to the horizontal. As for the specialized weapons, the most egregious example of this is the FG42. It was initially designed with some REALLY retarded post-Crete specifications to be a combination gun that would simultaneously fill the role of battle rifle, SMG, and LMG. Truth be told it was good at none of that, but the Army thought the design had some merits as a really light mag fed LMG, similar to how the US used the BAR and how the Brits used the Bren. Of course Goering wasn't going to have those poors in the Army paying with his ~*~*Limited Special Collector's Edition Luftwaffe Preorder Only*~*~ gun so he cock blocked that every which way he could, with the end result that he was given gently caress near zero production support from the Army and a TINY number of FG42s were ever built. In all fairness that was probably a good thing for the Army. There were a few other random examples of this having to do with rifle variants and pistols and I think a few light mortar designs, but the FG42 is the most famous example and the one I remember the best. This wasn't just the Luftwaffe being retards either. THe Army did its damndest to keep the G/K43 and StG44 out of the hands of both the SS and the Luftwaffe infantry units as well. Seriously, the worst Cold Warrior inter-service rivalry dickhead the US ever produced has absolutely nothing on the Germans, and I'm including all that post-WW2 Army/USAF/Navy dickwaving over missile development.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2012 17:34
|
|
|
Was it all down to Goering's force of personality / sheer mass, or did the differing levels of Nazi ideological penetration of Luftwaffe vs Wehrmacht play a role? I have a vague notion that the Luftwaffe was very well Nazified, at least at the upper levels, but I can't remember how I got it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2012 18:06
|
|
|
I'd really like to see a tank thread that goes from WWI - present similar to the planes in the beginning of this thread. After having played WOT, tanks have been getting higher on my list of interesting things to waste work time reading about.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2012 18:40
|
|
|
The interwar period is such an amazing story of tank development. All of the crazy things that they tried (Multiple turrets, tiny tanks, huge tanks, etc) and the doctrines that emerged from it. For every good idea there were about three others that made you wonder if they were dropping acid at the time. In some ways it was typical 'planning to fight the last war', but others parts were almost crazy sci-fi stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2012 18:56
|
|
|
Xerxes17 posted:Actually, the evolution goes a bit like this Stories of Tanks ITT Thanks. While I understood bits of this story, I've never really understood why it branched the way it did. Also I had no idea that the factory for the T-80 is in the Ukraine  I just thought the Russians were being cheap when the T-90 was a "massively upgraded T-72."Just for clarity: was the T-64 a new tank design, or was it actually an improvement on the T-54/55? Was the T-80 similarly a refresh of the T-64? They talk about lineage in these designs, and I never know how literal to take that... The IS-3 is really mad that it never got a direct successor but everybody Soviet ripped off its looks Cyrano4747 posted:Of course Goering wasn't going to have those poors in the Army paying with his ~*~*Limited Special Collector's Edition Luftwaffe Preorder Only*~*~ gun so he cock blocked that every which way he could, Thinking of Goering as some fat nerd obsessed with bullshit and bling is actually a good way to think about him, I like it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 00:13
|
|
|
Goering was ace fighter pilot and a bona fide war heroe. We're all human with human foibles I suppose. The Chinese also place their airborne formation(singular) under the command of the air force and the Soviet Union has it as a separate branch of the armed forces. Maybe because the air force has a bit more prestige in those countries versus the regular army.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 01:07
|
|
|
Throatwarbler posted:Goering was ace fighter pilot and a bona fide war heroe. We're all human with human foibles I suppose. The NAVY isn't even independent of the Army in China. People's Liberation Army Navy.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 02:21
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:Stories of Tanks ITT Nebakenezzer posted:Just for clarity: was the T-64 a new tank design, or was it actually an improvement on the T-54/55? Was the T-80 similarly a refresh of the T-64? They talk about lineage in these designs, and I never know how literal to take that...
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 02:54
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:Cool poo poo about Goering sticking his fat fingers in the Army pie So, what's the story behind the Herman Goering Division? I remember seeing it called the "Herman Goering Panzer Parachute Division", and it's just like, what the gently caress is the "b-b-but PLANES therefore LUFTWAFFE" link for a full-on armored division?
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 03:14
|
|
|
Flikken posted:The NAVY isn't even independent of the Army in China. That's actually just a quirk of translation. The Chinese word 军 is more accurately translated to "military" or "force", but for whatever reason "People's Liberation Military" just didn't have the right ring to it so they used army. It's not meant to denote any hierarchy among the various arms.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 03:30
|
|
|
Zorak of Michigan posted:Was it all down to Goering's force of personality / sheer mass, or did the differing levels of Nazi ideological penetration of Luftwaffe vs Wehrmacht play a role? I have a vague notion that the Luftwaffe was very well Nazified, at least at the upper levels, but I can't remember how I got it. Most of it came down to Goering being a big wig in the party and having an entire political empire built up. Remember, he was appointed Minister of the Interior of the state of Prussia in 1933. Why was this important? Because Prussia was easily the largest German state at the time (it made up more or less the entire northern half of the country, from the Dutch border to the Polish), and the position gave him control over its police. He used that position to start constructing his little internal empire, basically constantly competing with Himmler over control of various police formations and resources. On the whole the Luftwaffe wasn't any more or less ideologically penetrated than any other pre-1933 military organization. Pornographic Memory posted:So, what's the story behind the Herman Goering Division? I remember seeing it called the "Herman Goering Panzer Parachute Division", and it's just like, what the gently caress is the "b-b-but PLANES therefore LUFTWAFFE" link for a full-on armored division? The tl;dr version is that Goering started his own secret police (the Gestapo) when he got handed internal affairs in Prussia, but then was forced to hand them over to Himmler later on. He also had a contingent of regular police who were just good 'ol fashioned die hard Nazis, and in order to keep them under his control he had them reorganized as a paramilitary unit, and they later became one of the first parachute regiments when he was given the Luftwaffe. Fast forward to 1941 and they were reorganized as a motorized regiment more or less because jumping out of airplanes wasn't happening any more and trucks were pretty useful in N. Africa and Russia. With that they started working more in conjunction with armor, and Goering eventually got it expanded to a full blown Panzer division. The whole process was expedited and driven by a lot of direct orders from Goering, who was at this point not only head of the Luftwaffe, but also the guy in head of German industry as a whole and basically 2nd to Hitler. So, basically a combination of mission creep, sequential re-definition of the purpose of the unit due to the exigencies of the war, and Goering's giant loving ego resulted in air force guys driving tanks. Throatwarbler posted:Goering was ace fighter pilot and a bona fide war heroe. We're all human with human foibles I suppose. Yes, foibles like personally orchestrating one of the largest slave labor economies Europe has seen since medieval serfdom as well as major complicity in the loving Holocaust. He might have flown airplanes in WW1, but he was also a giant fuckhead.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 05:56
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:
Just as a clarification the units that came to form the core of the Herman Göring Fallschirm-Panzerdivision were never true Fallschirmtruppen (Paratroopers), but more like traditional light infantry like the Luftwaffe Felddivisions (although better motivated and trained.) They acted as kampfgruppen (small battalion sized battle groups) in most campaigns until the formation of the HG Panzerdivision. It is interesting to note that the HG Panzerdivision troops were equipped with SS pattern camouflage uniforms and the soldiers wore traditional stalhelms instead of the cut down paratrooper style helmets. The Fallschirm regiments and divisions maintained paratrooper training for most of the war and as like the US and Commonwealth counterparts were looked upon as elite units. They were fielded as light infantry and used like the other "elite" units like Großdeutschland and the "germanic" Waffen-SS units as firebrigade units from midwar on. Plugging holes and being put into the hot spots.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 06:26
|
|
|
I'm not seeing how this pissing contest is fundamentally different from the US's constant inter-departmental bickering over who owns close air support.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 08:34
|
|
|
Speaking of interservice dick waiving, would the US Army have NEAR the amount of Rotary wing support if instead of leaving Helicopters to the Army that the Air Force took them in 1947?
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 10:59
|
|
|
Xerxes17 posted:It took elements of the T-55, but could quite solidly be considered a "new design" considering all the new poo poo they did to it. The T-80 was a refresh of the T-64 as far as I know. Yeah it took elements like "tracks", "armor" and "a gun". Things like the powerpack, suspension, autoloader, FCS, optics, stabilizer, gun caliber, composite armor, crew size, division of labor and workload are a bit different though. The -64 was a revolution in design, the first true MBT. They built on it with the T-80 with which the gas turbine engine and concurrent drivetrain/undercarriage changes were the biggest advance over the older model.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 12:01
|
|
|
Is it true Soviet autoloaders like to try and stuff the gunner into the breech from time to time?
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 13:02
|
|
|
Oxford Comma posted:Is it true Soviet autoloaders like to try and stuff the gunner into the breech from time to time? I think it is plausible, especially with newly trained or poorly trained gunners. quote:This photo is from the gunner's position, with the main gun to the left. Much has been written about the auto-loader "eating" gunners, but this is mostly myth. However, a careless or poorly trained gunner could be seriously injured by the loader system. http://tankerslife.homestead.com/T72o1.html quote:Hoping to purchase a stopgap advanced MBT, Pakistan settled on the T-72. Despite the terrible reputation it earned for itself in the 1990s, largely due to the 1991 Gulf War and debacle in Chechnya, not to mention the auto-loader's established reputation for 'eating' gunner's arms, the T-72 was not a bad choice. It could cope with the extremities of the Pakistani climate, especially the fiercely hot deserts which have become increasingly important in terms of armoured warfare. http://usmanansari.com/id40.html From a armor discussion board quote:The T-72 is not in any way kind to it's crews, when I first saw one at Duxford I was amazed at how low down it is and the small size of the turret, now the T-64 isn't much bigger, true. However both tanks have different auto loaders, The T-64 has the hydraulic powered 'basket type' while the T-72 has the electric powered 'cassette type' Both are reliable though there were issues with the auto loaders on the T-64A, the whole gunner's losing their arms stories. Due to the ammo storage arrangement on the T-64, the auto-loader itself gives around 3in more head room than a T-72, very useful in a tank as cramped as these. Also because of this the ammo is stored lower in the hull, and thus less exposed, the basket design also allows the carousel to traverse in two directions allowing for faster selection of ammunition loading and thus a faster firing rate, 6-9 seconds, vs 6-14 seconds for the cassette type. The T-72 also has a flaw reminiscent of the T-62 series; a small hatch at the back for the shell stubs are ejected, while this saves room it is not good in an NBC environment, unless however this system can be turned off. http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/2-20197.aspx#startofcomments quote:The T-72 autoloader differs from the T-64 and T-80 basket autoloader, in that it has both propellant and projectile stored horizontally. The carousel rotation is limited to 1 direction only. in normal operation, the cassette loader takes 6 seconds to load a round. However, it can take up to 15 seconds to load a round if the round desired is a 355 degree turn of the carousel away. There has been rumors that the autoloader has eaten the hands of gunners, and fed them into the main gun breech, but this is impossible. The gunner would have to put his hand into the breech, after pushing the gun load button. Most likely, the source of this urban legend goes back the the very first autoloader models that were integrated into the T-62 as well as the unprotected hydraulic loading mechanism of the BMP-1 where a uniform could get snagged with moving parts and the resulting injuries.  http://failheap-challenge.com/showthread.php?769-Tank-porn-NSFW/page2  bronies, anti-Semitic remarks, etc.
Syrian Lannister fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Jun 13, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 13:47
|
|
|
Cyrano, what was with the non-Germanic SS divisions? Was it just Nazi sympathizers from other countries or what?
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 15:34
|
|
|
It's a bit complicated, but the short form smartphone version is yeah, facists from other countries joined up on the commie killin' crusade. Plus you had poo poo like the Milice as well, for domestic crap.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 15:50
|
|
|
Also the horrific losses that the Germans were suffering allowed Himmler to lower his standards.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 19:24
|
|
|
From what I remember they didn't even have to be sympathizers, just dudes that didn't want to go die in a cave making buzz bombs.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2012 22:28
|
|
|
Yeah, there were plenty of units (Like the 33rd, the French who were the last ones defending Hitler's bunker) that started off with were asked "So do you hate communists? Do you also hate working to death as slave labour?". Some were dedicated commie killers but some were just guys who figured it'd be better than being a POW. It was the classic Roman strategy of recruiting foreign units then moving them as far away as possible from their homeland to pit them against cultures they were unsympathetic to.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2012 04:46
|
|
|
There's a thread in A/T for all this WWII stuf.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2012 09:00
|
|
|
Koesj posted:There's a thread in A/T for all this WWII stuf. I only get my war history from people that own murder devices 
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2012 13:29
|
|
|
That A/T thread had some pretty glaringly wrong info being thrown around.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2012 13:59
|
|
|
Insane Totoro posted:That A/T thread had some pretty glaringly wrong info being thrown around. Any A/T or GBS history thread is generally a total clusterfuck of myths, legends, "cool stories," poo poo that flat out never happened, and controversial theories being thrown around as stone cold facts.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2012 17:35
|
|
|
Switching gears... Trinity and Beyond I just found this on Hulu. I know it's been discussed in the thread before but I don't think anyone has ever linked the whole movie. If you haven't seen this, it's an absolute must watch as soon as possible. A great documentary on the development of nuclear weapons with footage declassified from all the major landmark tests. Also narrated by William Shatner. It's a really amazing film.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2012 01:53
|
|
|
Insane Totoro posted:That A/T thread had some pretty glaringly wrong info being thrown around. What was inaccurate that never got corrected?
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2012 09:36
|
|
|
Spending the day at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford. I only have my iPhone camera but I'll hopefully have some pics for the thread tonight or tomorrow.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2012 12:34
|
|
|
Koesj posted:Yeah it took elements like "tracks", "armor" and "a gun". Things like the powerpack, suspension, autoloader, FCS, optics, stabilizer, gun caliber, composite armor, crew size, division of labor and workload are a bit different though. I just finished reading about the development of the T-64 and T-80. Coincidentally the original T-80 was not very popular because it turned out to be worse than the upgraded T-64s in a variety of ways. The Turbine engines were also very unpopular for a variety of reasons (fires, fuel efficiency, a good scapegoat for the horrible failures of Russian armor in Chechnya) and through poor training they led to hilarious poo poo like tank units in Chechnya running out of fuel before moving out because they didn't know the turbine eats just as much gas when idling as when moving. The T-64 and T-72 were both brand new designs rather than evolutions of the T-55/62. They were developed at the same time and shared a lot of features, such as the basic layout of the hull. However, as the higher quality offering the T-64 got a better fire control system, better suspension, composite armor, and was actually a bit smaller and lighter. Of course a few things didn't work out quite as planned so the T-64 autoloader was a nightmare and the engine turned out to be unreliable garbage that broke CONSTANTLY.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2012 12:50
|
|
|
Yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of the end of the Falklands War. While browsing for new Mirage/Kfir pictures today, I ran across an interesting article. I can't verify its accuracy, but here you go: "The Day That Israel Helped Argentina In The Falklands War" http://www.taringa.net/posts/info/11887910/El-dia-que-israel-ayudo-a-la-Argentina-en-la-guerra-_reco_.html quote:"I began to explain that the Falklands were Argentina's and whatever. [Israeli Prime Minister Menachem] Begin interrupted and said, 'I come to you badmouth the English. Will this be used to kill Englishmen? Kadima [Forward with the plan]. Dov [Aaron Dovrat, boss of Argentina's Ivrex company] will be satisfied with this decision I made. Yes, of course, I do everything right." Why did Begin have such antipathy toward the British? quote:England administered the region of Palestine after the First World War to the partition by the UN, which allowed the creation of Israel in 1948. At that time, various armed groups Jews sought to erode the power of London in attacks to fulfill the promise of founding a Jewish state in the area. Menachem Begin was the commander of the Irgun, one of these groups, which also featured his friend Dov Gruner, who was captured by the British when he was preparing an attack and hanged on April 16, 1947. Back in about 1917, British foreign minister Lord Balfour had issued a foreign policy declaration that Britain was committed to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. This led to waves of Jewish immigration (each wave called an aliyah) to the Holy Land. Shortly before World War II, Britain issued a White Paper that nullified the Balfour Declaration, and stopped supporting the creation of a Jewish state. Thus they turned administration of Palestine over to the United Nations, who recommended that it be partitioned between the Jews and Arabs; the Arabs attacked the Jewish-held areas, and the Jews fought back, and Israel was born in 1948. English-Israeli relations had been sketchy since 1956. In '56, Egypt closed the Suez Canal, and England and France invited Israel to join them in a war to reopen the Canal. England and France whiffed on the preparations, so when H-hour came and Israel attacked, the two Great Powers kept dallying at sea for several days. Israel, being Israel, whomped all over Egypt until the Great Powers finally waltzed in and did their thing, but it left a sour taste in Israeli mouths about cooperating with or relying on a Great Power. After that, fear of losing Arab oil led Britain to drop virtually all support for Israel, and British foreign policy became almost antagonistic toward Israel. Then in the 1967 Straits of Tiran crisis, which would later blow up into the Six Days War, Britain was approached to be a part of a plan called "Red Sea Regatta," where maritime nations would sail through Tiran, which Egypt had blockaded in violation of international law, in order to reopen the Straits for Israeli shipping. Britain refused, which many Israelis saw as blatant hypocrisy in light of how Britain had handled the Suez Canal crisis. "She'll go to war when it's British shipping rights that are infringed, but she'll tell us not to move when it's our shipping rights at stake," was the prevailing Israeli attitude toward the British at that time. Thus by the time the Falklands War rolled around, when Argentina was looking for someone to listen to their sob story about how bad the British were, Israel was all too ready to nod its head in agreement. quote:Israel needed to sell the weapons in a triangular deal, through a third country, in order to maintain relationships with England (both for commerce and to protect England's Jewish community, one of the largest in the world) so that Begin would not look like he was openly supporting Argentina against London. The article goes on to say that Peru was that third country. Even though I can't verify the article's claims, I will say that they are plausible for several reasons. First, Argentina's air force was heavily reliant on A-4 Skyhawks, which Israel had flown for several years, but by 1982 the IAF was phasing Skyhawks out in favor of F-15s and -16s. Thus the IAF would have had spare A-4s parts that needed buying. Second, Argentina's air force did include 39 IAI Neshers, their reverse-engineered copy of the Mirage-5. Israel had begun selling these craft to Argentina in 1978, so they did have a history of selling arms to Argentina. So, maybe the article is true, and maybe it isn't. As near as I can tell, all the information in the article comes from a single Argentine book, "Operation Israel," which came out last year. Here's a writeup in The Guardian (lol British journalism): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/falklandislands/8463934/Israel-supplied-arms-to-Argentina-during-Falklands-War.html And, just for good measure, a nearly word-for-word copy from the liberal Israeli paper Ha'aretz: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/begin-aided-argentina-during-falklands-war-to-avenge-the-british-1.357246 So, maybe it's true, and maybe it's not. I'd like to see the claims backed up by more than a single book before I say anything with certainty, but the claims are plausible based on historical context. Have a Mirage: 
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2012 14:45
|
|
|
Reinstalling Il-2 has reminded me how much Soviet aviation (especially the VVS) owned even before the Cold War! I might just have to make a big effortpost about it one of these days. Despite their poor performance early on (mostly due to poo poo leadership), Red Army Aviation had some pretty gucci toys at their disposal, including some of the fastest and most agile aircraft of the early-war period. The cancelled experimental types are really interesting, too - my personal favourite is Polikarpov's I-185, cancelled due to a mixture of engine problems causing the prototypes to fall out of the sky, politics, and the fact that Lavochkin's new radial-engined fighter was showing promise all of its own while being much easier to produce (since it used parts from his previous designs). The air war in the East gets overlooked a lot because, well... the war on the ground happened. It tends to drown everything out. It is absolutely fascinating, though, and for all the people lusting over aircraft like late-model Bf109s or Fw190s, the Soviets had comparable (if not superior) counterparts themselves which don't often get the love they deserve. 
rossmum fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Jun 16, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2012 12:26
|
|
|
Hoping iyaayas01 will weigh in on this with his informed opinion... I've been wondering why there hasn't been a major effort to rework weapons dispensers, particularly for attack helicopters? For instance, the Mi-28 can carry 8 ataka-v missiles on a single outer pylon, yet the Apache is limited to 4 Hellfires per pylon. Is there any plausible reason that a review of the hellfire/hydra launch systems may result in a combination launcher that would enhance the capability of a system like the Apache?
|
|
#
?
Jun 17, 2012 14:02
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl5wHGnxmqE&feature=youtu.be Taken from the explosions thread in GBS, this should answer the question about RPGs having a minimum range that came up earlier.
|
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2012 02:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 16:02 |
|
|
Warbadger posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl5wHGnxmqE&feature=youtu.be That looks like he was about 25-50m away from the tank which would probably be pretty close to its arming distance.
|
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2012 04:02
|
|
