swagger like us posted:Another completely outside the subject of my first question. Does anyone have any interesting readings regarding the Russian-Georgian war in Ossetia? Im curious to see of the Russian Army's results post-Chechen disaster and Afghanistan and how they've improved their operational abilities. I read a few articles about South Ossetia a year or two ago. I can't find them now but I'll keep looking. From what I remember, the South Ossetian conflict wasn't a complete slam dunk for the Russians. Just curious, why you think there is a relationship to be drawn between Chechnya, Afghanistan and the South Ossetian conflict? It seems like an apples to oranges comparison to me.
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Jan 3, 2013 02:33
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SeanBeansShako posted:Two points towards MBT development! anything else in the field of the RAF or Royal Navy? The Concbomber, an amazing concept that while highly jolly does not seem to have actually existed.
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Jan 3, 2013 04:34
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Trouble Man posted:The Concbomber, an amazing concept that while highly jolly does not seem to have actually existed. What's this? I Googled it but couldn't find any info. swagger like us posted:Well if you look at his post history it falls in line with the annoying things he has been posting in this thread. I like General China's posting, shut up. How did the real General China (Waruhiu Itote) get that nickname?
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Jan 3, 2013 04:39
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Hey guys! I know the War Nerd's not really an authoritative source, but he wrote a series of articles about the War of 1812. Enjoy.
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Jan 3, 2013 05:59
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^^^I've been reading a lot about early US history lately, and I decided to start his stuff with the burning of Washington. I got about 4 paragraphs in before I was sick of his jazzy bullshit. A-the British weren't exactly taking it easy on us, they were fighting Napoleon then transferred tens of thousands of troops across the Atlantic; B-they did actually burn the Capitol, which WAS actually there, it just wasn't completed.Phanatic posted:Is that actually a thing outside of Larry Bond wankery? It's the ceramic/metal composite armor used on Abrams and Challenger tanks for 20+ years, so yeah. Godholio fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Jan 3, 2013 |
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Jan 3, 2013 17:32
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Godholio posted:^^^I've been reading a lot about early US history lately, and I decided to start his stuff with the burning of Washington. I got about 4 paragraphs in before I was sick of his jazzy bullshit. As far as content goes, the War Nerd is a couple steps ahead of a Cracked list, but he gets across okay because that's his target audience: young people who don't read books but who are marginally too clever for lovely Popular Science articles about future guns and drone aircraft.
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Jan 3, 2013 18:29
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Godholio posted:It's the ceramic/metal composite armor used on Abrams and Challenger tanks for 20+ years, so yeah. Not the 'electrified' version though`, which is nothing more than a shady prototype right now (and hasn't got anything to do with Chobham/Burlington armor AFAIK).
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Jan 3, 2013 18:35
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Veins McGee posted:I read a few articles about South Ossetia a year or two ago. I can't find them now but I'll keep looking. From what I remember, the South Ossetian conflict wasn't a complete slam dunk for the Russians. Mostly to do with progression. The Russian Army completely absorbed the training, doctrine and tactics of the Soviet Army, so the change from Afghanistan, to 1st Chechen War, to 2nd Chechen War, then to the Ossetia conflict is relevant, especially considering the mass reforms the Army had been taking last time I was paying attention ('05~) in professionalization, more NCOs, etc.
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Jan 3, 2013 19:23
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swagger like us posted:Mostly to do with progression. The Russian Army completely absorbed the training, doctrine and tactics of the Soviet Army, so the change from Afghanistan, to 1st Chechen War, to 2nd Chechen War, then to the Ossetia conflict is relevant, especially considering the mass reforms the Army had been taking last time I was paying attention ('05~) in professionalization, more NCOs, etc. The Georgian war was not a counter-insurgency operation. US-led coalitions too had great success in their invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq but the following COIN operations didn't go all Tom Clancy. The operational requirements are not near the same for a one week war that has been planned well ahead and a decade long COIN operation that you don't have any clue of how to get out without complete loss of face. I don't know how useful this is for you but here's a Russian think-tank's book on the South Ossetia war, with a foreword by Glantz: Tanks of August
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Jan 3, 2013 19:57
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Chamale posted:How did the real General China (Waruhiu Itote) get that nickname? He doesn't mention where the nickname came from in his biography " Mau Mau General ". But it wouldn't surprise me if it came from his miltary service in Ceylon and Burma, but that is a complete guess.
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Jan 3, 2013 21:55
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Godholio posted:
The reference I was asking about was specifically to "electrified Chobham armour." I'm familiar with Chobham armor, but I have no idea what electrified Chobham is, I took this to be a reference to some variety of capacitive discharge armor where the inner armor backing plate is charged up to some fuckoff voltage relative to the outer layer, and then when a HEAT penetrator completes the circuit the cap discharges through it, exploding it and preventing it from penetrating. I have seen nothing indicating this is a real armor system on any real tanks, so that's what I was asking about.
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Jan 3, 2013 22:07
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Apparently I skipped right over the word "electrified." Whoops.
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Jan 3, 2013 23:41
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swagger like us posted:Another completely outside the subject of my first question. Does anyone have any interesting readings regarding the Russian-Georgian war in Ossetia? Im curious to see of the Russian Army's results post-Chechen disaster and Afghanistan and how they've improved their operational abilities. The Russian Military and the Georgia War: Lessons and Implications Authored by Dr. Ariel Cohen, Colonel Robert E. Hamilton.
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Jan 3, 2013 23:48
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Godholio posted:Apparently I skipped right over the word "electrified." Whoops. I guess SeanBeansShako was either confused or talking out of his arse. Moving on, another British innovation might well have been the integrated avionics developed for TSR.2, as can be gleaned from this post mortem. It never came to bear though.
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Jan 4, 2013 02:16
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So can anyone tell me how a battle actually comes about in pre-gunpowder days? Wouldn't it just be better to walk around sacking everything of value in an area and not fight sieges? How would defending armies find an attacking army if scouting reports would be pretty old by the time you got them? How does an army lay ambushes in this case? How are battles fought on un-advantageous terrain if one side can just go "lolno"[for the most part, strategic areas such as fjords/bridges excepted] and walk at about the speed his opponent does to some where else?
Defenestrategy fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Jan 4, 2013 |
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Jan 4, 2013 03:08
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KildarX posted:So can anyone tell me how a battle actually comes about in pre-gunpowder days? Wouldn't it just be better to walk around sacking everything of value in an area and not fight sieges? How would defending armies find an attacking army if scouting reports would be pretty old by the time you got them? How does an army lay ambushes in this case? How are battles fought on un-advantageous terrain if one side can just go "lolno"[for the most part, strategic areas such as fjords/bridges excepted] and walk at about the speed his opponent does to some where else? The vast majority of fighting was nothing but sieges. Army on army is most definitely a highlight, but if you take every armed conflict into account, most of them were one sided smashes. The idea being isn't that you just attack because there's the enemy, you attack when you know you can win. And on rare occasion the other side will be forced to fight or will be in a similar position of thinking they can pull it out as well.
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Jan 4, 2013 03:34
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The problem is that valueable stuff in the area is either behind a castle or city wall to begin with or will be the moment the locals get wind that your merry horde of marauders is coming. Looting the area clean also doesn't suffice if you want to gain actual territory, for which castles and similar are lynchpins. Armies of the time tended to move rather slowly (for most of the part) and were forced by terrain and logistics to follow certain routes, which made it easier to scout them and predict their movements and hence lay ambushes. Feigned retreats and similar bait tactics also worked. And, of course, there's always the most reliable way to get the other guy to stand and fight: You march on something he cares about. An example for maneuvering to force the fight on the enemy would be the leadup to Agincourt: The French outguessed the english army and parked themselves right on the only route out for the English, forcing them to fight it out or keep sitting in the trap and starve. (Of course, the French nobles then proceeded to hilariously cock it up.) Magni fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Jan 4, 2013 |
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Jan 4, 2013 03:37
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Half the army dies from dysentry.
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Jan 4, 2013 03:51
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Chamale posted:What's this? I Googled it but couldn't find any info. Basically, it "was" a completely demented urban legend to the effect that the Concorde was really designed as a supersonic bomber and that there was at least one Concorde with the relevant equipment actually built. Quite mad, but good fun.
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Jan 4, 2013 04:54
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KildarX posted:So can anyone tell me how a battle actually comes about in pre-gunpowder days? Wouldn't it just be better to walk around sacking everything of value in an area and not fight sieges? How would defending armies find an attacking army if scouting reports would be pretty old by the time you got them? How does an army lay ambushes in this case? How are battles fought on un-advantageous terrain if one side can just go "lolno"[for the most part, strategic areas such as fjords/bridges excepted] and walk at about the speed his opponent does to some where else? A majority of pre-gunpowder warfare in the medieval era was precisely what you described: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevauch%C3%A9e - which died out eventually because basically everything got fortified.
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Jan 4, 2013 05:00
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Yeah, which was also a habit pretty much unknown elsewhere in the world. The arabs got pretty confused at first and then pretty pissed when the Crusaders started building fortresses all over Outremer after the 1st Crusade; not only to protect cities but to use them to control the countryside and trade routes.
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Jan 4, 2013 05:17
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Koesj posted:I guess SeanBeansShako was either confused or talking out of his arse. I was confused, I read it somewhere as electrified. My apologies (out my arse).
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Jan 4, 2013 05:21
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Magni posted:Yeah, which was also a habit pretty much unknown elsewhere in the world. The arabs got pretty confused at first and then pretty pissed when the Crusaders started building fortresses all over Outremer after the 1st Crusade; not only to protect cities but to use them to control the countryside and trade routes. Some of those fortresses still stand and are amazing monuments to the crusaders and Kingdoms in the holy land. Heres some of the more famous ones- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak_des_Chevaliers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belvoir_Fortress_(Israel) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margat
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Jan 4, 2013 05:32
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Were there ever any fighters (even prototypes or experimental) that were powered by a turboprop engine?
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Jan 4, 2013 18:49
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Farecoal posted:Were there ever any fighters (even prototypes or experimental) that were powered by a turboprop engine?  Meet the XF-84H "Thunderscreech", a development of the jet-powered F-84F Thunderstreak. It flew a few times, but problems with the supersonic propeller and the ungodly noise (Stemming from the supersonic propeller) led to its cancellation, much to the relief of its test pilots. Edit: I'm just going to copy this section from Wikipedia because it's hilarious: Noise posted:The XF-84H was quite possibly the loudest aircraft ever built (rivalled only by the Russian Tupolev Tu-95 "Bear" bomber), earning the nickname "Thunderscreech" as well as the "Mighty Ear Banger". On the ground "run ups", the prototypes could reportedly be heard 25 miles (40 km) away. Unlike standard propellers that turn at subsonic speeds, the outer 24–30 inches of the blades on the XF-84H's propeller traveled faster than the speed of sound even at idle thrust, producing a continuous visible sonic boom that radiated laterally from the propellers for hundreds of yards. The shock wave was actually powerful enough to knock a man down; an unfortunate crew chief who was inside a nearby C-47 was severely incapacitated during a 30-minute ground run. Coupled with the already considerable noise from the subsonic aspect of the propeller and the dual turbines, the aircraft was notorious for inducing severe nausea and headaches among ground crews. In one report, a Republic engineer suffered a seizure after close range exposure to the shock waves emanating from a powered-up XF-84H. Acebuckeye13 fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Jan 4, 2013 |
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Jan 4, 2013 19:06
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KildarX posted:So can anyone tell me how a battle actually comes about in pre-gunpowder days? Wouldn't it just be better to walk around sacking everything of value in an area and not fight sieges? How would defending armies find an attacking army if scouting reports would be pretty old by the time you got them? How does an army lay ambushes in this case? How are battles fought on un-advantageous terrain if one side can just go "lolno"[for the most part, strategic areas such as fjords/bridges excepted] and walk at about the speed his opponent does to some where else? Also remember that for the vast majority of history nobody had any good maps of anything so splitting up the army was a good way to get a lot of your troops hopelessly lost. Rent-A-Cop fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Jan 4, 2013 |
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Jan 4, 2013 19:10
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Saint Celestine posted:Some of those fortresses still stand and are amazing monuments to the crusaders and Kingdoms in the holy land. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_Castle,_Lebanon#Modern_history The Beaufort castle in Lebanon was fought over during the civil war
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Jan 4, 2013 21:29
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Farecoal posted:Were there ever any fighters (even prototypes or experimental) that were powered by a turboprop engine? Westland Wyvern Convair XFY Lockheed XFV There was a proposal for a turboprop F-87, I don't know if a modded XF-87 using the Allison engines ever existed. The USAF is looking (for sufficiently low values of "looking") for a cheap COIN fighter, and candidates seem to include T-6 Texan IIs, Super Tucanos, or this thing called a Machete. But I guess none of those latter three count as fighters, unless they do count because they're actually used as fighter aircraft by other countries. First turboprop aircraft flown was a modified Meteor, so that counts.
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Jan 4, 2013 21:56
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haakman posted:Just to say, your posts are incredibly interesting, well thought out and backed up - in most cases - by primary sources. Please don't stop! Thanks. I finished a master's thesis dealing with 11th and 12th century warfare a few months ago, so I have Strong Opinions on the subject and can just look back at it to call references to mind. KildarX posted:So can anyone tell me how a battle actually comes about in pre-gunpowder days? Wouldn't it just be better to walk around sacking everything of value in an area and not fight sieges? How would defending armies find an attacking army if scouting reports would be pretty old by the time you got them? How does an army lay ambushes in this case? How are battles fought on un-advantageous terrain if one side can just go "lolno"[for the most part, strategic areas such as fjords/bridges excepted] and walk at about the speed his opponent does to some where else? I'll write a big old post on this when I have a bit more time. The conduct of a campaign is something I feel I have a pretty sound grasp on, but I'd point out that there are no truly 'typical' campaigns, as all kinds of circumstance and the like, so keep in mind anything I write can be modified by prevailing conditions. Rent-A-Cop posted:Also remember that for the vast majority of history nobody had any good maps of anything so splitting up the army was a good way to get a lot of your troops hopelessly lost. I've seen no evidence for a risk of troops getting "hopelessly" lost in expeditions where a division of forces was not only good, it was necessary. In El Victorial Gutierre Diaz de Gamez writes about men dispatched from galleys to ravage the Tunisian coast, and though they could not find the town they were looking for (Diaz attributes this to divine intervention) they had no trouble returning to the ships. The only time men get really lost is when they are split up not into groups but as individuals. Louis VI's flight from Brémule ended with him relying on a Norman peasant to lead him back to Andelys.
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Jan 4, 2013 22:12
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It was common practice, at least in the early modern era, to split up the army along parallel roads (if any were available) so as to reduce congestion and speed up the advance. It was also common for armies to prefer advancing alongside rivers since that meant the artillery, camp equipment etc could be transported by boat or barge, which was much more efficient than using wagons and horses.
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Jan 5, 2013 00:57
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Why didn't Britain/France invade Alaska during the Crimean War? Because it was seen to be an arctic hell-hole not worth the effort - like British Columbia, only worse? Did Britain even have any plans to raid and destroy the Russian port facilities or trade stations there like they did in Kamchatka and elsewhere in the Pacific? Brits also weren't interested in buying it when Russians offered it for sale. It's funny to think how things might have gone if Russians had decided not to sell it after all. The cold war certainly would have been far more thrilling if Alaska was a Soviet territory... also in some bizarro world Japan annexes Russian Alaska in 1905, finds oil and becomes a major oil exporter.
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Jan 5, 2013 22:18
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Nenonen posted:Why didn't Britain/France invade Alaska during the Crimean War? Because it was seen to be an arctic hell-hole not worth the effort - like British Columbia, only worse? Did Britain even have any plans to raid and destroy the Russian port facilities or trade stations there like they did in Kamchatka and elsewhere in the Pacific? During the Crimean War, the Russian presence in Alaska was so small and isolated that it honestly barely existed, and was not worth thinking about. There was also very little in the way of British presence in the area. A few years after the war, however, there was a sudden rush of settlers to British Columbia after gold was discovered in Fraser Canyon. Nearby British settlements expanded quickly, and the Royal Navy moved its Pacific HQ to Esquimault, BC. At the same time, the process of Canadian Confederation was beginning, which had the potential to bring Britain's North American possessions under one government. This made it clear to the Russian government that their position in Alaska was untenable, so they sold it off. If British settlements in BC had been at the 1865 level of development ten years earlier, in time for the Crimean War, they probably would have bothered to pick off Russian Alaska.
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Jan 5, 2013 23:37
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:I've seen no evidence for a risk of troops getting "hopelessly" lost in expeditions where a division of forces was not only good, it was necessary. In El Victorial Gutierre Diaz de Gamez writes about men dispatched from galleys to ravage the Tunisian coast, and though they could not find the town they were looking for (Diaz attributes this to divine intervention) they had no trouble returning to the ships. The only time men get really lost is when they are split up not into groups but as individuals. Louis VI's flight from Brémule ended with him relying on a Norman peasant to lead him back to Andelys. March divided and fight concentrated is an old maxim. Although one of the mysteries surrounding Manzikert is that Emperor Diogenes sent a chunk of his forces off to chase away some Turkish raiders and they just disappeared from the chronicles. Did they desert? Get ambushed? Get lost? Nobody really knows, except they missed out on the big battle.
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Jan 6, 2013 01:17
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Nenonen posted:Brits also weren't interested in buying it when Russians offered it for sale. It's funny to think how things might have gone if Russians had decided not to sell it after all. The cold war certainly would have been far more thrilling if Alaska was a Soviet territory... also in some bizarro world Japan annexes Russian Alaska in 1905, finds oil and becomes a major oil exporter. Here's Tank-Net sperging out on it.
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Jan 6, 2013 07:18
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How does anyone with google trust any military anymore?
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Jan 6, 2013 07:26
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indoflaven posted:How does anyone with google trust any military anymore? It's not pretty, it's fairly corrupt and a drain on resources, but it's a necessary evil for security and safety. It is humanity's legacy, for better or worse, and it sure can be interesting from a historical and technological standpoint. To answer your question, you can only hope that they are on your side, protecting your assets, territory, culture, etc from those who wish to take or change it. It's a combination of protection and subjugation or control, depending on how you see it. There's a lot of crazy poo poo going on out of the public eye, some of which is morally questionable or repulsive. I can't defend that, but it's the way of the world, my friend. That's also more of a D&D question, and shouldn't be in this thread. Mach420 fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Jan 6, 2013 |
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Jan 6, 2013 11:24
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indoflaven posted:How does anyone with google trust any military anymore? The short answer is, it depends on the issue.
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Jan 6, 2013 18:06
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Farecoal posted:Well, at least we can all agree the French blowed at designing planes, especially bombers. We cannot, look up the Lioré&Olivier LEO-451 and the Potez 631, the smartest looking medium bombers at the start of WWII IMO.
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Jan 7, 2013 00:14
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Mr Havafap posted:We cannot, look up the Lioré&Olivier LEO-451 and the Potez 631, the smartest looking medium bombers at the start of WWII IMO. Shut up I like my generalizations 
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Jan 7, 2013 00:39
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I read tonight that there was a German fleet in or near Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War, supposedly waiting on President McKinley's decision on what to do with the Philippines, and that they broke off when the US decided to annex the islands. Was this something like a coincidence that the fleet was there, or did the Germans really have designs towards the Philippines?
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