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Alt History is Fun! What do you suppose would have happened if Maurice of Nassau managed to create an alliance between the United Provinces, Holland, the Ottomans and the various other minor Muslim nations in some grand alliance against Spain? His well-trained and drilled army would have most likely beaten any Spanish army in the field, but what about the Ottomans and Moors? Would they apply enough pressure or even prevail to offset Spanish conquests in the new world? WHAT IF?????!!!1
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Dec 21, 2012 17:26
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Counterfactuals do their job in my line of work tyvm 
Koesj fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Dec 21, 2012 |
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Dec 21, 2012 17:30
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Arrinien posted:Speaking of Japan and invading the US, is there any information floating around about what the American plans are in case of an invasion of the continental states? I suppose this hasn't really ever been all that feasible by any country (from another continent, so not like War Plan Red), but I'm curious even for general things like "roll over them in the flat Midwest states with Abrams" Say, anything from the 20th century, so also not the Spanish from Mexico or anything. Does anything like that exist or is it too in the realm if fantasy for anyone to put serious thought into? Rent-A-Cop fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Dec 21, 2012 |
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Dec 21, 2012 17:42
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Koesj posted:Here you go: Cuban Missile War (1962), Protect and Survive (1983/84) - And Spinoffs, 1983: Doomsday (including Peru!) Thank you very much, this will lower my productivity at work for a couple of days. By the way, not enought Perú in Doomsday
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Dec 21, 2012 18:32
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How big of a role does espionage play in warfare pre-WW1 considering the communications speed would make information pretty dated by the time it got any where useful?
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Dec 21, 2012 18:52
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KildarX posted:How big of a role does espionage play in warfare pre-WW1 considering the communications speed would make information pretty dated by the time it got any where useful? Pretty important, given that the speed of military manoeuvres was also much slower. But espionage pre-WW1 was a really haphazard and amateur affair - it was in the arms race leading up to the war that European states started consolidating all their espionage efforts into formal agencies.
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Dec 21, 2012 18:59
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Rabhadh posted:Why didn't the Japanese just move around the coast shutting down the Korean naval bases like Alexander in the Levant? Were their supplies already that low they needed a quick victory? I think it's important to remember that the entire point of this campaign was to conquer Ming China. In Hideyoshi's mind, it was going to go like this. 1.) Rapid march on the Korean capital. Kill/exile the royals. 2.) ??? 3.) Korean people become loyal to Hideyoshi and support his war against Ming China. 4.) A majority Korean army centred around a Japanese core of hard veterans and experienced commanders marches through Liaoning and takes Beijing. By the time the Jeolla Province navy started making trouble in the south, the Japanese were nearly at Pyeongyang. At this point, they had no shortage of warships and eager commanders to throw into battle so they figured they could easily win at sea, especially considering the shameful performance of the Gyeongsang Province navy in the opening days of the war. By the time it was evident that they were outclassed and that it would take land forces to destroy the naval bases, it was the fall of 1592 and the Ming reinforcements were already crossing the Yalu River. Meanwhile Hideyoshi's army was stretched incredibly thin garrisoning points along the 500km+ road back to Busan. The guerrilla activity had gotten so bad that these troops were basically confined to base.
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Dec 21, 2012 19:20
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KildarX posted:How big of a role does espionage play in warfare pre-WW1 considering the communications speed would make information pretty dated by the time it got any where useful? There really isn't a time in history when espionage (or something like it) wasn't extremely important. To use an example I'm familiar with, both sides during the Civil War drove a pretty heavy majority of their intelligence from spies, both formal "networked" spies that operated deep behind enemy lines, and more tactical spies, professional and not. The major nationwide spy networks were typically run by individuals working in and around major enemy cities, who built up groups of sympathizers to run intelligence of every sort up the chain. This could be as simple as reviewing newspapers for casualty lists, or as clandestine as stealing orders, supply schedules, etc. These were arguably the first true organized national intelligence efforts. In addition to the strategic level nets, every major command had an intelligence section that was responsible for building more localized networks in the area in which they operated. This was very simple during the ACW era, as all you really needed to do was find a local who happened to support your cause (whichever it might be) and then tap him for information. Locals would follow armies and report on their movements, count troops, note battle flags, etc. The ACW was obviously unique in how effective and extensive its spy networks were just due to the political situation surrounding the war, but the general idea was pretty similar to how every country did its intelligence in the preindustrial age.
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Dec 21, 2012 19:54
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Indeed, even the Mongols can attribute some proportion of their success to their excellent military intelligence: http://www.etudeshistoriques.org/index.php/etudeshistorique/article/view/7/7
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Dec 21, 2012 22:48
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Not a chance. As detailed by this article (Written by one of the guys who wrote thread favorite Shattered Sword), Japan simply did not have anywhere near the manpower to even attempt to invade Oahu. Shattered Sword told me that the Japanese wouldn't have had the resources to even take or hold Midway (once it had some defences up in 1942), little like Hawaii's main islands.
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Dec 22, 2012 02:57
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I'm pretty confident that they could have taken it through the sheer weight of numbers they had in their invasion fleet. However it would have only been a matter of weeks before the US cut off and isolated the Japanese garrison at Midway, preventing any chance at resupply.
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Dec 22, 2012 03:57
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:I'm pretty confident that they could have taken it through the sheer weight of numbers they had in their invasion fleet. However it would have only been a matter of weeks before the US cut off and isolated the Japanese garrison at Midway, preventing any chance at resupply. They really couldn't. They only outnumbered the defenders of Midway by 2 to 1, maybe 3 to 1. The Americans were well dug in with a ton of heavy weapons, plus the invaders would have to cross 400 yards of water because of the reef. Its pretty doubtful they could have taken Midway the first time.
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Dec 22, 2012 04:02
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:I'm pretty confident that they could have taken it through the sheer weight of numbers they had in their invasion fleet. However it would have only been a matter of weeks before the US cut off and isolated the Japanese garrison at Midway, preventing any chance at resupply. i) presupposing Japanese naval success, US carriers either sunk, put out of action, or routed; ii) recognizing that IJN air assets had almost non-existent ground-attack doctrine or "tested naval gunfire support doctrine" iii) inter-service rivalry, naval craft with army troops, and all the coordination and communication issues that entails. Furthermore, there had seemingly been no rehearsal iv) the USMC forces were well dug-in on the island, some sections even had concrete bunkers, and while the June 4 attack destroyed large amounts of infrastructure in terms of depots, oil tanks and barracks, it hardly harmed the defensive emplacements. v) Since the first strike had been so ineffective (only 6 dead and not a single heavy gun put out of action) its fair to suppose that further attacks would've had a similar result. vi) countless other actions in the rest of the war demonstrated how well dug-in forces could resist heavy-caliber naval fire vii) Midway is surrounded by an extensive coral reef, the only gaps in the west are a very poor approach for a landing, and the one in the south (cleared by the Americans) was under the fire arcs of many heavy guns. viii) there is practically no high tide at Midway, therefore the barges would have to unload on the far side of the reef, which at the closest point to the island was still 200 yards (~180meters). The Japanese troops would then have to cross the reef, cross the lagoon, and then make it onto the beach. ix) US strength on the islands were anywhere from 3,000 to 4,500, counting all personnel. However, they were almost all Marines and thus had all gone through infantry training. x) The Marines had laid obstacles in the water, and the beaches had been covered in mines and barbed wire. They had also manufactured over 1,500 IEDs. xi) The 6th Defense Battalion counted with a platoon of M3 tanks, five 5inch guns, 4 3inch guns, 12 3inch AA guns, 48 .50cal mgs, 36 30.cal mgs. (this is not counting other AA emplacements, which would've added more 3inch AA guns, and 20mm and 37mm automatic guns). xii) Japanese doctrine called for landings to take place at night in undefended locales. The only examples of daylight landings at defended areas were in Wake and against Bataan (and those results were ambiguous and against reduced forces). The authors conclude by drawing a comparison to Japanese landings at Guadalcanal two months later, specifically Colonel Ichiki's landing and the 700 casualties that it endured as it was annihilated. Then they point out that at Guadalcanal the defending troops had a lot less firepower. Even if one of the two light infantry regiments (i.e. in 1942 no heavier weapon than a light mortar) made it to the beach, they would've been helpless against the Stuarts. all of this "... leaving the Imperial warships witness to an unprecedented slaughter."
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Dec 22, 2012 14:12
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Between gliders and paradrops, which ended up being more effective?
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Dec 23, 2012 06:44
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gradenko_2000 posted:Between gliders and paradrops, which ended up being more effective? Me personally I'd say paradrops. They're still in use today, as opposed to gliders which have been replaced by helicopters. If a glider took a rough landing it's likely that everyone on board would be royally screwed, where as you'd likely only have a few casualties (mostly injuries sustained from the jump) in a paradrop, but the majority of the chalk would make it down in one piece. That said, paradrops have the tendency to spread jumpers out over a large area, so it takes a bit of time for them to regroup. Darkman Fanpage fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Dec 23, 2012 |
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Dec 23, 2012 07:11
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gradenko_2000 posted:Between gliders and paradrops, which ended up being more effective? Glider troops were one of those ww2-ism that were relevant for literally just that war. It allowed basic infantry to be used to bolster parachute formations and deliver heavy equipment - both of which were made pointless with the sidelining of large scale parachute operations and the advances in transport aircraft/parachutes post-war respectively.
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Dec 23, 2012 13:07
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Red7 posted:deliver heavy equipment What kind of heavy equipment? I wouldn't think that to mean field artillery or heavy machine guns, because it seems that to drop people behind enemy lines you would want them to be super light troops to take advantage of surprise and rapid mobility and maybe drop them with, in the case of Americans, BARs and Thompsons maybe a bazooka or two?
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Dec 23, 2012 15:03
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KildarX posted:What kind of heavy equipment? I wouldn't think that to mean field artillery or heavy machine guns, because it seems that to drop people behind enemy lines you would want them to be super light troops to take advantage of surprise and rapid mobility and maybe drop them with, in the case of Americans, BARs and Thompsons maybe a bazooka or two? Aside from heavy small arms, I think gliders were able to deliver jeeps, mortars and even small artillery or anti-tank pieces, although I think you could only fit one or two per glider.
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Dec 23, 2012 15:11
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KildarX posted:What kind of heavy equipment? I wouldn't think that to mean field artillery or heavy machine guns, because it seems that to drop people behind enemy lines you would want them to be super light troops to take advantage of surprise and rapid mobility and maybe drop them with, in the case of Americans, BARs and Thompsons maybe a bazooka or two? There were specially designed howitzers they flew in, as well as Jeeps, antitank guns, food, ammo, and support personnel. One of the major problems with airborne assaults was that the paratroopers lacked any anti armor capability. The AT guns and bazookas countered that. Jeeps gave mobility for recon purposes. If your operation goes on for awhile, gliders are the best way to reinforce and resupply. The helicopter made them obsolete though, which is why you don't see any after WW2.
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Dec 23, 2012 15:14
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KildarX posted:What kind of heavy equipment? I wouldn't think that to mean field artillery or heavy machine guns, because it seems that to drop people behind enemy lines you would want them to be super light troops to take advantage of surprise and rapid mobility and maybe drop them with, in the case of Americans, BARs and Thompsons maybe a bazooka or two? For the British at least (I don't know about the Americans, but they'd have something) they used gliders to drop stuff like Tetrarch light tanks, jeeps, 6 and 17 pounder anti-tank guns and 75mm Howitzers. Parachute Infantry are just that at the end of the day, Infantry - once they hit the ground they're a light infantry formation who act accordingly. e: DasReich posted:The helicopter made them obsolete though, which is why you don't see any after WW2. Its worth noting that while helicopters have made more operational jumps (like for instance Operation Varsity) obsolete, as helicopters can ferry troops the much shorter distances with all the added benefits; helicopters are still unable to do the kind of strategic theatre entry operations that are pretty much the only reason for keeping large scale airborne forces around anymore. Transport aircraft can carry a lot of gear now and have the bonus of being able to do multiple trips, which gliders can't - regardless of them using parachutes or a captured airhead to deploy it. While helicopters sidelined airborne operations - transport aircraft advances specifically sidelined gliders. Red7 fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Dec 23, 2012 |
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Dec 23, 2012 15:16
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What did they do with the gliders? Reclaim and reuse them after capturing an area, or were they single-use machines?
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Dec 23, 2012 21:24
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Chamale posted:What did they do with the gliders? Reclaim and reuse them after capturing an area, or were they single-use machines? IIRC single use. I believe they were made out of what amounts to plywood, and usually sustained some form of damage even landing under perfect conditions.
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Dec 23, 2012 21:39
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I am rather curious to know what happened to the glider pilots after landing, did they just get attached to the infantry units they were hauling or did they just sit on their thumbs waiting for army/air force to extract them and put them on a new glider?
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Dec 24, 2012 06:05
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Justufinhaamu posted:I am rather curious to know what happened to the glider pilots after landing, did they just get attached to the infantry units they were hauling or did they just sit on their thumbs waiting for army/air force to extract them and put them on a new glider?
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Dec 24, 2012 07:20
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Speaking of air forces, why did it take so long for the US to make its own independent air branch? It seems like that was the one thing we had in common with Japan in WW2. Britain of course did it first with the RAF in early 1918, but most other countries followed along. Canada, Australia, Italy, Finland, France, Poland, Soviet Union, China, well the list goes on. Almost everyone involved in WW2 had set up independent air arms by the early 1930's, we seem to be alone with basically Japan, Holland and Norway.
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Dec 24, 2012 07:34
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http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Wings-War-Combat-Gliders/dp/1588340341 http://www.amazon.com/Us-Var-Ist-Over/dp/0962965308/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356331134&sr=1-1&keywords=For+us+%27the+Var+Ist+Over http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/silent-ones-charles-l-day/1004733399?ean=9780970890313 These books were cited as having some good information on the topic. http://www.wingedcommandos.org/resources/ Blckdrgn posted:Something to remember here, especially for the Americans. The Air Force wasn't the "air force" yet. Also better known as the army air corp. all the pilots around this time were army personel, which means as was the standard, everyone is a rifleman first, and then their MOS second. You're thinking of the Marine Corps, which isn't really true either. In the general sense, yes everyone learns how to operate a rifle. Beyond that, not really.
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Dec 24, 2012 07:45
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I can vaguely see the argument for NOT needing an independent air arm as long as national military interests are focused purely on sustaining land operations and not on independent action. The Airforce strikes me as being partially political as they can be more easily focused on defending urban centers while the army would maybe prioritize their supply chains and depots. My gut feeling is that an independent air arm is most effective in the role of adequately prioritizing the percentage of resources between national defence and field military needs independent of what the land army and woodentop navy wants.
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Dec 24, 2012 07:53
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Blckdrgn posted:Something to remember here, especially for the Americans. The Air Force wasn't the "air force" yet. Also better known as the army air corp. all the pilots around this time were army personel, which means as was the standard, everyone is a rifleman first, and then their MOS second. That's really not true. First, by the time D-Day rolled around, it was the Air Force. It was the *Army* Air Force, yes, but it stopped being called the Army Air Corps in 1942. Second, that "rifleman first, MOS second" stuff is a Marine Corps conceit, doesn't even approach being true in the Army. Every Marine may be a rifleman, but Army glider pilots were supposed to group up and assemble for an eventual extraction, and only if that wasn't possible were they supposed to pick up a rifle. They received rudimentary weapons training and didn't really have the sort of dedicated skillset that the gliderborne infantry or the airborne infantry did. British glider pilots received more training than that and there was a real expecation they'd operate as competent infantrymen, but not US glider pilots. In Europe, anyway. Glider pilots in the Chinese-Burma-India theater did six weeks of real infantry training at Seymour-Johnson, including full-pack marches, weapons quals, hand-to-hand training, and so forth. Many gliders only took one-way trips, since as mentioned they were fragile aircraft and the pilots couldn't exactly wave off and come around for a second landing attempt. There was a system whereby gliders could be recovered; they'd rig up a towline suspended between two tall poles, and a C-47 or C-54 would come in low trailing a hook to catch the towline and yank the glider back into the air. The US recovered several hundred gliders by this method, but that's across the entire war, so it wasn't exactly a common thing. INTJ Mastermind posted:Glider pilot must have been the worst gig ever. Who wants to volunteer for a 1-way trip into Nazi Germany in a plywood box that ends in a crash landing at night? Obviously these guys had pilot training, so was it simply the guys who washed out of fighter -> bomber -> transport pilot school? No, there weren't enough people in fighter/bomber/transport school to begin with. Remember, we built like 12,000 of just one sort of glider, no way were we going to cannibalize the ranks of fighter pilots to crew them. They were volunteers, a lot of them were enlisted ranks, even privates. They'd come out of the glider pilot course as staff sergeants but they went in as buck privates. Wash-outs from the "real" schools were accepted, eventually, but at the start of the program they were ruled ineligible, and there weren't enough wash-outs to fill the ranks anyway. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 08:02 on Dec 24, 2012 |
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Dec 24, 2012 07:55
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Glider pilot must have been the worst gig ever. Who wants to volunteer for a 1-way trip into Nazi Germany in a plywood box that ends in a crash landing at night? Obviously these guys had pilot training, so was it simply the guys who washed out of fighter -> bomber -> transport pilot school?
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Dec 24, 2012 07:56
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INTJ Mastermind posted:Glider pilot must have been the worst gig ever. Who wants to volunteer for a 1-way trip into Nazi Germany in a plywood box that ends in a crash landing at night? The glider troops also didn't initially get the same benefits as the paratroops, jump pay and all that.
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Dec 24, 2012 10:08
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My paternal grandfather was a CG-4A pilot. He finished training in mid 1944, and was on a ship headed for who the hell knows where in the Pacific when the war ended. He didn't speak of his experiences very much, but you certainly got the impression that after meeting some of the pilots who came back from Normandy and Market Garden, he didn't relish the idea of a combat flight into mainland Japan. Combat gliders weren't replaced by helicopters, they were replaced by transport aircraft with doors that allowed you to push big things out of them in flight, and large cargo parachute rigging. Infantry can jump out of anything, but you can't push a light tank or pallet of ammunition out of the side door of a C-47.
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Dec 24, 2012 20:07
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Another method of airborne deployment (and evacuation) until the end of WW2 for small detachments was by flying boats or float planes. That too was made obsolute by helicopters, which could be fitted with floaters if needed and could land even in the smallest pond or the roughest pasture. Soviets pretty much perfected the airborne deployment of mechanized units during the cold war. At first the AFVs and their crews were dropped separately, which had the downside of the crew having to first regroup, then search for their vehicle on foot. Then they came up with rocket assisted parachutes that made it possible to drop the ASU/BMD crew inside their vehicle.
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Dec 25, 2012 01:07
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^^ Those LZs were to have been secured by regular airborne infantry and/or air assault troops though, with an understandable preference for intact airstrips. How this would have worked out in a hot war within a very un-permissible airspace? Not very well if you ask me. On top of that the eight (!) divisions they had in their heyday couldn't have been used simultaneously since the transportation wasn't there. They did some nifty stuff in A'stan but let an entire company of VDV get slaughtered in Chechnya, all adding to the mystique of Soviet desantniki of course.
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Dec 25, 2012 02:10
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Was there any real good way to defeat horse archers before gunpowder weapons became common? Since while there have been some victories against forces based on Horse archers it seems like it was extremely hard to defeat them.
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Dec 27, 2012 12:51
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A fortified position or your own horse archers. Are there any instances of the Mongols being defeated in their prime?
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Dec 27, 2012 12:57
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ganglysumbia posted:Are there any instances of the Mongols being defeated in their prime? The only case I can think offhand is Ain Jalut.
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Dec 27, 2012 13:00
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ganglysumbia posted:A fortified position or your own horse archers. Vincent Van Goatse posted:The only case I can think offhand is Ain Jalut.
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Dec 27, 2012 13:25
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:The only case I can think offhand is Ain Jalut. quote:From the King of Kings of the East and West, the Great Khan. To Qutuz the Mamluk, who fled to escape our swords. You should think of what happened to other countries and submit to us. You have heard how we have conquered a vast empire and have purified the earth of the disorders that tainted it. We have conquered vast areas, massacring all the people. You cannot escape from the terror of our armies. Where can you flee? What road will you use to escape us? Our horses are swift, our arrows sharp, our swords like thunderbolts, our hearts as hard as the mountains, our soldiers as numerous as the sand. Fortresses will not detain us, nor armies stop us. Your prayers to God will not avail against us. We are not moved by tears nor touched by lamentations. Only those who beg our protection will be safe. Hasten your reply before the fire of war is kindled. Resist and you will suffer the most terrible catastrophes. We will shatter your mosques and reveal the weakness of your God and then will kill your children and your old men together. At present you are the only enemy against whom we have to march.  drat, the only thing more badass then that is the guy who upon hearing that just decides to take on the Mongols anyway.
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Dec 27, 2012 13:27
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quote:Qutuz responded, however, by killing the envoys and displaying their heads on Bab Zuweila, one of the gates of Cairo. To be fair to Hulagu (that destroyer of cities and ravager of civilizations, the villain that shattered the great Muslim empires, who ruined Mesopotamia and killed millions), he had to return to Mongolia with most of his army to elect a new Khan. The same thing happened with Sobedai in Europe. Ain Jalut was only a fraction of the army. After the new Khan (Kublai) was elected, the decision was made to focus on ravaging China instead of the lands to the far west.
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Dec 27, 2012 17:38
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ganglysumbia posted:A fortified position or your own horse archers. The fortress of Klis in Croatia saw off a Tatar siege in 1242, Ivan Asen II defeated them in battle in 1241 and indeed they had a much rougher time all around in the Balkans than in Rus', which is a large part of why I feel the idea of Mongols reaching France is fanciful.
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Dec 27, 2012 17:53
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