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Nenonen posted:I'm not either an FO or an artilleryman by training so this could all be terribly wrong, but I'll try... In other words, unless there's already a predesignated firemission planned out, it'll probably take at least 15 minutes before any shelling would commence.
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Jun 17, 2012 23:10
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Mongol armies were supposedly famed for sending spies out preceding invasions or sieges; how exactly was this accomplished? Wouldn't anyone trusted as a Spy by Mongol commanders stand out pretty badly, in, for example, Bhagdad or Eastern and Central Europe?
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Jun 18, 2012 05:08
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Probably not. Every culture ever has had a fair number of dissidents since we started having cities, and all you have to have is a guy from the next-closest region to pose as a merchant and make contacts with these dissidents. As technology has gotten better and government organization has increased, spying has generally gotten harder. I can't speak to any specifics RE the Mongols, though.
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Jun 18, 2012 06:16
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lilljonas posted:Ironically, the term "water cure" was coined during the Philippine-American War by American soldiers who used it liberally to interrogate and torture locals. You probably know the water cure as "waterboarding". Watercure involved forcing the victim to drink a large quantity of water and then putting pressure(or punching) the stomach. Alchenar posted:MBTs are also what forces conflicts into an asymmetric shape. If we got rid of all the stuff that made fighting a conventional war against Western forces suicidal then we'd end up fighting more conventional wars. Brilliant. We should arm ourselves with spears and shields so we don't have to fight insurgencies...oh wait. MBTs aren't what force asymmetric fights. The huge disparity between combatants, in all aspects, is what forces asymmetric conflict. MBTs are a symptom not a cause. Even if liberal first world democracies didn't exert their technological and industrial capacity against insurgencies, there would still be insurgencies. Mans posted:Is there any purpose for MBTs in modern conflicts now that war has shifted from organized armies with clear fronts to insurgency style attacks against an occupying force? IFVs equiped with explosive ordinance seem to be the way of the future. 2) Yes, heavy armor plays a role in counter-insurgencies. Modern armor brings a lot of the battlefield that you don't get from IFVs. The shock effect, excellent optics, and firepower that MBTs bring to the battlefield can't be matched by anything else. Granted, they're of little use in the later stages of a counter-insurgent fight. During the initial phases, where combat is often and heavy, the ability to bring 120mm HE direct fire against an insurgent strong point is pretty useful. See Phantom Fury for an example. Marines also brought M1s to Afghanistan in 2010 or 2011. There are certainly instances where using an MBT is like hammering a square peg into a round hole.
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Jun 18, 2012 06:45
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Veins McGee posted:1) It's silly to assume that every war ever fought from here into the future will be counter-insurgency type wars. It's worth noting that the US-trained Georgian army turned out to be utterly worthless at fighting a more conventional war against the Russians during the Georgian war, since the Georgian army had pretty strong focus on building up light infantry to be used for counterinsurgency warfare. That's fairly recent military history.
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Jun 18, 2012 07:38
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Is there here anyone who's knowledgeable about the Crimean War? It (along with the Franco-Prussian War) was the major precursor to WWI, yet I don't know anything about it apart from the charge of the light brigade. What was it about? Why the hell were British and French soldiers in Crimea, pretty deep into (then) Russian territory?
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Jun 18, 2012 07:50
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Mr. Sunshine posted:Is there here anyone who's knowledgeable about the Crimean War? It (along with the Franco-Prussian War) was the major precursor to WWI, yet I don't know anything about it apart from the charge of the light brigade. What was it about? Why the hell were British and French soldiers in Crimea, pretty deep into (then) Russian territory? Basically loving around to maintain the balance of power. The Russian's were kicking the poo poo out of the Ottomans, at this point the 'Sick Man of Europe,' who the Brits and to a lesser extent the French found useful as a sufficiently stabilizing force in the region that was also weak enough to bend to their needs. They rolled in up the Black Sea as opposed to, well, anywhere else in Russia because, as Napoleon had shown, there wasn't a whole lot to be gained in marching on Moscow. The British and the French, to win, merely had to prevent the Russians from doing what they wanted, which was easier to achieve by contesting the Crimea than landing at the theoretically closer Baltic regions or whatever.
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Jun 18, 2012 08:10
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the JJ posted:Basically loving around to maintain the balance of power. The Russian's were kicking the poo poo out of the Ottomans, at this point the 'Sick Man of Europe,' who the Brits and to a lesser extent the French found useful as a sufficiently stabilizing force in the region that was also weak enough to bend to their needs. They rolled in up the Black Sea as opposed to, well, anywhere else in Russia because, as Napoleon had shown, there wasn't a whole lot to be gained in marching on Moscow. The British and the French, to win, merely had to prevent the Russians from doing what they wanted, which was easier to achieve by contesting the Crimea than landing at the theoretically closer Baltic regions or whatever. If I remember that correctly, they blockaded the baltic ports and Murmansk as best they could, which is what a sea power does best.
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Jun 18, 2012 08:53
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ArchangeI posted:If I remember that correctly, they blockaded the baltic ports and Murmansk as best they could, which is what a sea power does best. And demonstrated the ability to take down any of Russia's coastal defenses at will. This, incidentally, may have been the root of Churchill's Baltic obsession: it worked once.
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Jun 18, 2012 09:12
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mllaneza posted:And demonstrated the ability to take down any of Russia's coastal defenses at will. This, incidentally, may have been the root of Churchill's Baltic obsession: it worked once. Not any: Battle of Viapori quote:Other such attacks were not so successful, and the poorly planned attempts to take Hanko, Ekenäs, Kokkola, and Turku were repulsed. The Anglo-French landing parties were usually repulsed by local fishermen with old muskets. Sometimes Russian troops joined, like in the battle at Halkokari in Kokkola, 1854, where HMS Vulture and HMS Odin launched nine boats: quote:The defenders captured one landing boat with its whole crew captured (3 officers, 31 sailors). The population captured trophies and drank wine taken from the boat. Cossacks were drunk for two days and couldn't take care of their horses. The whole town joined the celebrations. The Brits tried their luck in Kokkola again a year later, but again the landing party was driven back. 
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Jun 18, 2012 10:26
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Nenonen posted:Not any: They also attacked Petropavlovsk way the hell out on the Kamchatka penninsula: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Petropavlovsk There were a few other raids, but I imagine most coastal parts of Russia were either unimportant/desolate and any city worth taking would be too easily defended/too hard to capture.
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Jun 18, 2012 10:57
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The raids were aimed at crippling Russian empire's trade and turn the public opinion against the war, by burning merchant ships in anchorage and wares stored in coast towns (which had accumulated there due to the blockade). Sometimes this backfired, eg. in Oulu the Royal Navy landing party eagerly burned up 7000 barrels of tar. It turned out that the tar had been bought and fully paid for by British trade companies before the war. All in all the material damage of the war for Finnish trade was heavy due to the number of destroyed merchant ships - which also represented a large share of Russian empire's merchant fleet.
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Jun 18, 2012 11:23
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Why is Turkey still around? I would have assumed that after WW1 / WW2 the powers that be would have seen it returned to Christian hands. Especially with the dissolvement of the Ottoman Empire.
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Jun 18, 2012 11:48
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Why is Turkey still around? I would have assumed that after WW1 / WW2 the powers that be would have seen it returned to Christian hands. Especially with the dissolvement of the Ottoman Empire. What? That's insane. You're insane.
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Jun 18, 2012 11:57
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Why is Turkey still around? I would have assumed that after WW1 / WW2 the powers that be would have seen it returned to Christian hands. Especially with the dissolvement of the Ottoman Empire. That's sort of like asking "Why wasn't Italy returned to Pagan hands after WWII". The question makes no sense. E: Unless you live in some kind of Sid Meyer reality where you can somehow liberate Constantinople in 1918 and return it to its rightful Byzantine rulers. Mr. Sunshine fucked around with this message at 12:10 on Jun 18, 2012 |
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Jun 18, 2012 12:06
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Why is Turkey still around? I would have assumed that after WW1 / WW2 the powers that be would have seen it returned to Christian hands. Especially with the dissolvement of the Ottoman Empire. I'll give a slightly better answer: Turkey has been Muslim majority for about a thousand years. After Persia (Iran) and North Africa were conquered (and in many places converted willingly), Muslim forces spent centuries fighting to conquer Asia Minor (Turkey). When they did conquer, a group of ethnic Turks known as Ottomans built up an empire that was larger than Rome ever was. It covered almost the same territory as Alexander the Great at the height of his power. Though tolerant of other religions, the Ottoman Empire was explicitly Muslim. By the end of World War I, most of modern Turkey had been Muslim for a millenia. Istanbul had had that name for 500 years. There was no way they were going to turn it into a Christian country. Not that the Allies didn't try. Large parts of the Turkish coast were officially made part of Greece. The rest of the country had limited sovereignty and was effectively turned into Greece's colony. This was followed by a vicious war of independence led a guy named Kamel Ataturk. Ataturk was the general who drove the Brits into the sea at Galipoli. He became the general who drove the Greeks out as well. He became the president (dictator) who made finished the Ottoman Empire and created modern Turkey. EDIT: If you have time, read about the partitioning of Ottoman Arabia after World War I. Everything from modern Turkey south to modern Israel and East to the border of Iraq and Iran was part of the Ottoman Empire. The Allies (British and French, mostly) gave the Arabs in this area their freedom (with a lot cush oil deals attached). More specifically, they made members of the Hashemite clan kings in randomly chosen territories. This is important to understand because the Hashemite were Wahabis (Salafis in their parlance), an ultra-conservative Muslim sect that, two centuries before, had rode around Arabia killing any Muslim that wasn't Wahabbi. The roots of modern Islamic extremism can be found at the end of World War I. While the British were turning hardcore Xenophobes into kings, France had dominion over Syria. A sizeable Christian minority lived on the Syrian coast. So France carved out a little country called Lebanon for the Christians. Of course, they had no idea how the different religious groups were divided, so you had Christians, SUnnis, Shia, and Druze split up all over the two countries. Watch CNN today to see how that turned out. I'm not looking down on Islam. I've backpacked around Arabia and really loved it. But gently caress Salafis. Salafis are the Westboro Baptist Church of Islam. I'm quoting all this from the top of my head. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Bagheera fucked around with this message at 12:28 on Jun 18, 2012 |
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Jun 18, 2012 12:16
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Yeah, the west really hosed up the mid-east during that period. Turkey turned out pretty nice apart from the (still denied) genocide of Armenians. They have a secular government, but the military holds lots of power. Pretty weird, but wayyy better compared to the poo poo that's happened in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Afghanistan etc. Oil and greed really screwed the citizens in that region.
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Jun 18, 2012 12:55
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Samopsa posted:Yeah, the west really hosed up the mid-east during that period. Turkey turned out pretty nice apart from the (still denied) genocide of Armenians. They have a secular government, but the military holds lots of power. Pretty weird, but wayyy better compared to the poo poo that's happened in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Afghanistan etc. Oil and greed really screwed the citizens in that region. You forgot the Kurds. Everyone forgets the Kurds 
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Jun 18, 2012 12:56
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Alchenar posted:You forgot the Kurds. Everyone forgets the Kurds Yeah, but that's a whole other story that was discussed like, a page ago. But yeah, Kurds also got shafted. Pretty much everyone except a very very time minority of extremely rich dudes.
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Jun 18, 2012 13:01
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Mr. Sunshine posted:
The Russians actually planned to do this in 1877-78, and the Greeks had lobbied for (and been promised) Constantinople in exchange for entering into WWI. Bagheera posted:Ataturk was the general who drove the Brits into the sea at Galipoli. This is just not true. Treating Mustafa Kemal as solely or even chiefly responsible for the Ottoman victory at Gallipoli is myth. Ataturk was only a LtCol for the campaign, and, as fitting for a LtCol, played a comparatively small part in it. It was a German general, Otto Liman von Sanders, who was actually in command at Gallipoli.
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Jun 18, 2012 13:30
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Bagheera posted:I'll give a slightly better answer: Turkey has been Muslim majority for about a thousand years. After Persia (Iran) and North Africa were conquered (and in many places converted willingly), Muslim forces spent centuries fighting to conquer Asia Minor (Turkey). When they did conquer, a group of ethnic Turks known as Ottomans built up an empire that was larger than Rome ever was. It covered almost the same territory as Alexander the Great at the height of his power. Though tolerant of other religions, the Ottoman Empire was explicitly Muslim. Thanks for the response.
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Jun 18, 2012 13:39
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asbo subject posted:The other term coined during the Phillipine-American war was " The White Man's Burden ". Nearly everybody thinks this is some awful British imperialist shite, which it is, but the poem was written to advise the USA. I always thought that poem was satirical, is this incorrect?
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Jun 18, 2012 13:51
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bewbies posted:I always thought that poem was satirical, is this incorrect? It's Kipling. The man was a dyed-in-the-wool imperialist. I'm not using that as an insult, either. Pretty sure he self-identified as one.
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Jun 18, 2012 13:56
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It's also a complete inaccuracy to say that the British were 'driven into the sea' at Galipoli. That just didn't happen. Sure they never made it very far from the sea and the Campaign as a whole was disastrous, but the evacuation itself was basically uncontested and the Turks didn't even realise it was happening until it was mostly complete. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Jun 18, 2012 |
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Jun 18, 2012 14:26
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Despite Vietnam being what you would call an assymetrical, I read somewhere that the NVA did have some soviet tanks, can you tell me about any notable tank battles of the Vietnam war?
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Jun 18, 2012 14:39
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Alchenar posted:It's also a complete inaccuracy to say that the British were 'driven into the sea' at Galipoli. That just didn't happen. How big a role did the ANZAC play in the campaign? For Australia and New Zealand has risen to mythical proportions, how is that?
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Jun 18, 2012 14:47
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I learnt how the Greek War for Independence cost the Ottomans their Egyptian vassals. The Greek War of Independence is drat facinating to read about. Somebody should do a break down of it. SeanBeansShako fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Jun 18, 2012 |
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Jun 18, 2012 14:54
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Jumpingmanjim posted:Despite Vietnam being what you would call an assymetrical, I read somewhere that the NVA did have some soviet tanks, can you tell me about any notable tank battles of the Vietnam war? There's only one instance of armored combat between US and NVA forces, M48s versus PT-76s in 1969. ARVN tanks fought a lot more though. Here's Donn Starry's book on Mounted Combat in Vietnam: http://www.history.army.mil/books/Vietnam/mounted/index.htm#contents I hate the NVA moniker by the way since it was the official name of the East German Army - Nationale Volksarmee - same goes for KLA/UÇK.
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Jun 18, 2012 14:57
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Nenonen posted:How big a role did the ANZAC play in the campaign? For Australia and New Zealand has risen to mythical proportions, how is that? Pretty big. A large proportion of troops were ANZACS. The Generals who came out of Galipoli with promotions and went on to bigger and better things were Australian and New Zealanders. It was also their first 'proper' foreign war.
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Jun 18, 2012 15:09
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Nenonen posted:How big a role did the ANZAC play in the campaign? For Australia and New Zealand has risen to mythical proportions, how is that? This is off the top of my head but... The Australians and New Zealanders were landed to the north of the main British forces, in ANZAC cove. The landing was a feint, to trick the Ottomans to divert their strength towards the north and leave the landings in the south unmolested. The idea was that the main force would fight their way out of the beachheads and then link up with them, while the ANZAC force kept the enemy tied up. Well, that didn't loving happen. Most officers with any kind of the greater plan were either killed or wounded and evacuated on the first day, leaving the forces at ANZAC cove in chaos. They became stranded in a tiny little beachhead within range of enemy artillery, where they spent 8 months recreating a seaside Verdun. Like the rest of the Allied forces in the Dardanelles campaign, they achieved none of their overreaching targets, and their soldiers died in vain for a fool's plan. However, it was the first military action ever taken by either country as independent nations, so it was a pretty big deal. Add to that a sense of tragic romanticism, and well...
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Jun 18, 2012 15:13
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Samopsa posted:Yeah, the west really hosed up the mid-east during that period. Turkey turned out pretty nice apart from the (still denied) genocide of Armenians. They have a secular government, but the military holds lots of power. Pretty weird, but wayyy better compared to the poo poo that's happened in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Afghanistan etc. Oil and greed really screwed the citizens in that region. What have international mercenaries been up to since WW2? Aside from survivalist/hitmen ads in Soldier of Fortune, I only know about the Congo wars and the Seychelles coup (deposed president hired some guys to retake the island Jagged Alliance-style, then some idiot told the airport customs guy that he had an AK in his duffel bag).
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Jun 18, 2012 16:07
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SeanBeansShako posted:I learnt how the Greek War for Independence cost the Ottomans their Egyptian vassals. The Greek War of Independence is drat facinating to read about. Somebody should do a break down of it. Well, that and an amusingly dysfunctional government.
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Jun 18, 2012 16:08
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Ograbme posted:Paul "Sentient Turd" Wolfowitz got mad at the Turkish army for not overthrowing the elected government when they didn't support the Iraq war. They're literally all in Iraq.
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Jun 18, 2012 17:39
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Samopsa posted:Yeah, the west really hosed up the mid-east during that period. Turkey turned out pretty nice apart from the (still denied) genocide of Armenians. They have a secular government, but the military holds lots of power. Pretty weird, but wayyy better compared to the poo poo that's happened in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Afghanistan etc. Oil and greed really screwed the citizens in that region. Alchenar posted:You forgot the Kurds. Everyone forgets the Kurds
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Jun 18, 2012 18:00
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Going back to the Crimean War. Was that the first instance of France and the UK fighting on the same side in a conflict?
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Jun 18, 2012 18:10
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Flippycunt posted:Going back to the Crimean War. Was that the first instance of France and the UK fighting on the same side in a conflict? Depends really, in a sense it was the first time the modern countries of France and Great Britain worked together as a solid Military alliance.
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Jun 18, 2012 18:15
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Mr Havafap posted:You forgot Cyprus. Nobody ever thinks about Cyprus. However Cyprus got first hosed by the Greek military junta staging a coup there, aimed at uniting Cyprus with Greece. Turkey then took advantage of the situation and (permanently?) occupied one third of the island. This also resulted in the fall of the Greek junta. Everyone forgets the Greek junta! 
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Jun 18, 2012 18:19
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Nenonen posted:
Spotting rounds only need to be fired once from a position. Since the artillery units usually hold their position for a while it is likely that they can start with the barrage, since calibrating the guns with a spotting round is usually the first task a unit is given. I feel kinda stupid writing this, considering your nickname.
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Jun 18, 2012 19:07
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SeanBeansShako posted:Depends really, in a sense it was the first time the modern countries of France and Great Britain worked together as a solid Military alliance. Not quite. The later Stuarts were pretty friendly to France, partly because the French had taken in the exiled royal family during the Commonwealth. They worked together in the Third Anglo-Dutch War, among other things. Following the Glorious Revolution, there was basically 150 years of English-French enmity, but the War of the Quadruple Alliance was a brief exception.
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Jun 18, 2012 19:27
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Bagheera posted:I'll give a slightly better answer: Turkey has been Muslim majority for about a thousand years. After Persia (Iran) and North Africa were conquered (and in many places converted willingly), Muslim forces spent centuries fighting to conquer Asia Minor (Turkey). When they did conquer, a group of ethnic Turks known as Ottomans built up an empire that was larger than Rome ever was. It covered almost the same territory as Alexander the Great at the height of his power. Though tolerant of other religions, the Ottoman Empire was explicitly Muslim. The British had the Hashemites and Al Saud, contrary to what you say though, the Hashemites weren't wahabbis, you described the the Saudi however. They were notorious for almost blowing the prophets grave by cannon fire in medina because it constituted idol worship according to their wahabbi beliefs. The situation between the hashemites and al saud clan was pretty tense after driving the ottomans away, the latter didn't like the hashemites for being too soft apparently and drove them out of Hedjaz, the driven hashemite nobility set up their kingdoms in Syria, Iraq and Jordan accordingly, the only remenant of their legacy is the current Jordanian monarchy, the rest were overthrown by baathists.
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