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Yeah I can't be bothered about that sort of stuff when you can walk around in tons of museums and just see piles and piles of similar swords. Now if it were a rare weapon or model, then maybe.
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Nov 17, 2013 20:55
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Davincie posted:Yeah I can't be bothered about that sort of stuff when you can walk around in tons of museums and just see piles and piles of similar swords. Now if it were a rare weapon or model, then maybe. I don't think you can see piles of swords from 1550.
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Nov 17, 2013 21:07
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Obdicut posted:I don't think you can see piles of swords from 1550. They're still valuable and important and you shouldn't do that to them, but yes you can.
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Nov 17, 2013 21:32
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Davincie posted:Yeah I can't be bothered about that sort of stuff when you can walk around in tons of museums and just see piles and piles of similar swords. Now if it were a rare weapon or model, then maybe. A lot of stuff we consider rare wasn't so rare back in the day. What makes some of them rare is because people use them for doorstops, or fire pokers, etc.
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Nov 17, 2013 21:33
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As I understand it, surviving field weapons in general are rare as hell, they get broken, stolen, lost, recycled and a whole range of nasty things happen to a weapon meant to be used, leaving us with tons of ceremonial or ornamental weapons but hardly any weapons that actually got used.
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Nov 17, 2013 21:34
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veekie posted:As I understand it, surviving field weapons in general are rare as hell, they get broken, stolen, lost, recycled and a whole range of nasty things happen to a weapon meant to be used, leaving us with tons of ceremonial or ornamental weapons but hardly any weapons that actually got used. That's because someone didn't feel compelled to preserve a sword that actually got used, damaged, resharpened, and so on. I love the look of equipment that's really been used, like a sword with sackcloth tied around the base of the blade or a gun with hasty patches around a big crack in the stock.
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Nov 17, 2013 21:44
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veekie posted:As I understand it, surviving field weapons in general are rare as hell, they get broken, stolen, lost, recycled and a whole range of nasty things happen to a weapon meant to be used, leaving us with tons of ceremonial or ornamental weapons but hardly any weapons that actually got used. Concidering the wear and tear on military equipment in daily activity this sounds logical. I've seen colleagues of mine literally snap assault rifles in two during training. We also found a German bayonet in what used to be a garrison during WWII and it was rust all the way through. Since 70 years can do that to a relatively modern infantry weapon I find it amazing that swords from the viking age can survive at all 
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Nov 17, 2013 21:46
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AATREK CURES KIDS posted:That's because someone didn't feel compelled to preserve a sword that actually got used, damaged, resharpened, and so on. I love the look of equipment that's really been used, like a sword with sackcloth tied around the base of the blade or a gun with hasty patches around a big crack in the stock.
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Nov 17, 2013 21:48
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What's the usual military policy for handling obsolete(whether by technology, damage or doctrine) weapons anyway? Recycling and reforging? Tossed out with the trash? Properly destroyed? Obviously there'd be some significant differences based on the weapon composition, you could recycle metal, but wood, plastic and ordnance would be a different matter.
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Nov 17, 2013 22:01
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The US used to sell it off. Lots of surplus M1903s, M1 Garands, M1 Carbines, etc were purchased by civilians through the CMP. The US stock of Garands is gone but every once in a while a batch of foreign M1s shows up...Greek, etc. Many vehicles were also surplused off, like old Jeeps and even aircraft like P-51s. Nowadays I think most personal weapons are destroyed, and most aircraft end up in the boneyard at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tuscon for several years before being recycled. Edit: Also, certain fighters are actually retained at DM to supply drone needs. F-86s, F-106s, and F-4s were converted to QF models...pilot-optional drones. Most of these are flown from Tyndall AFB over the Gulf of Mexico to provide realistic maneuvering for live system tests, including live missile shots. Over the past couple of years, QF-16s have been showing up as F-4 availability has dwindled. Godholio fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Nov 17, 2013 |
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Nov 17, 2013 22:04
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How about premodern armies?
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Nov 17, 2013 22:21
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How does what the Soviets experienced in their war in Afghanistan compare to the current US operations in that country?
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Nov 17, 2013 23:26
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Fangz posted:How does what the Soviets experienced in their war in Afghanistan compare to the current US operations in that country? I've often heard Afghanistan referred to as the Soviet's Vietnam, I feel like that should help explain it in a very general way.
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Nov 17, 2013 23:28
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How effective were the various European resistance movements during World War 2, particularly the French? And were there similar resistance groups in areas under Japanese occupation?
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Nov 18, 2013 00:17
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Farecoal posted:How effective were the various European resistance movements during World War 2, particularly the French? And were there similar resistance groups in areas under Japanese occupation? 
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Nov 18, 2013 00:29
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Fangz posted:How does what the Soviets experienced in their war in Afghanistan compare to the current US operations in that country? Pretty different in a lot of ways. COIN stuff like attending jirgas, building schools, doing presence patrols, wasn't something the Soviets did to a great extent. Bombing inhabited villages and laying minefields were things the Soviets did. Though both the US and Soviets both found that ANA and DRA troops were pretty poo poo... "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" is a good look at Soviet combat operations in Afghanistan. You can find a pdf of it online. Here's a short extract from it.
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Nov 18, 2013 00:41
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Farecoal posted:How effective were the various European resistance movements during World War 2, particularly the French? What's effective here? In principle they weren't a very effective military force, with the exception of Soviet Union where there was plenty of operational space for both communist and nationalist partisans, and stretched German supply lines to prey on. Even there they'd take a bad clobbering whenever they chose to directly confront the occupiers. German response to open resistance was always disproportionate violence aimed at local civilians (see death of Heydrich), which also kept the resistance underground. Even in Yugoslavia the partisan forces knew their limits, and Tito's headquarters were overrun by German paratroopers at one time. Paris uprising started just before Allied forces marched in, to give the communist resistance some political clout in post-war France. Warsaw uprising was a similar attempt at liberating the city so Red Army couldn't take that honour, but it was a premature move. But then the resistance had other functions - providing intelligence, helping with SOE operations, assisting Jewish refugees and Allied airmen stay underground and escape, preparing sabotage missions etc. This activity was especially significant in preparation to major conventional offensives like Overlord or Bagration. Wikipedia posted:A 1968 report from the Counter-insurgency Information Analysis Center details the results of the French Resistance's sabotage efforts: "In the southeast, 52 locomotives were destroyed on 6 June and the railway line cut in more than 500 places. Normandy was isolated as of 7 June. The telephone network in the invasion area was put out of order and beginning June 20, the railway lines of France were rendered inoperable, except in the Rhone Valley where the line Marseilles-Lyon was kept open by the Germans despite heavy engagements with [partisan] units.... Although the German local reserves were able to reach the front area despite resistance action... marked delays were achieved against the movement of strategic reserves. The French claim to have delayed up to 12 divisions for 8 to 15 days"
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Nov 18, 2013 01:13
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Nenonen posted:Warsaw uprising was a similar attempt at liberating the city so Red Army couldn't take that honour, but it was a premature move. Didn't the Soviets pause outside the city for the duration or the Warsaw uprising?
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Nov 18, 2013 01:20
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:Didn't the Soviets pause outside the city for the duration or the Warsaw uprising? Yes. It remains a point of contention whether or not they did this deliberately or because they'd run to the end of their logistical tether. They certainly didn't resume their advance immediately after the uprising failed; Bagration concludes around half-way through August 1944 and the next main offensive through Poland and into Germany happens in January 1945. The drawback of making a massive advance like the Soviets did is that the problem of getting food and ammunition to your front line from their starting points gets proportionately worse. e: \/\/ the Soviet attitude towards the Polish was 'crush any independent leadership' and Stalin certainly didn't care about the uprising, but the logistical arguments are pretty compelling. The Soviets had reached the end-line of their offensive and after 3 years of getting the poo poo kicked out of them by the Germans every time they overreached they weren't taking any chances. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Nov 18, 2013 |
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Nov 18, 2013 01:30
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:Didn't the Soviets pause outside the city for the duration or the Warsaw uprising? The Soviets halted outside of Warsaw, and didn't actually enter the city until the Germans had crushed the uprising. Simple reasons given are that it was very much not to the Soviet advantage to assist the Poles against the Germans, as that would make the Polish Home Army a legitimate organization, and thusly, lend support to the government in exile. The Soviets didn't want a free and independent Poland, they wanted a pliable puppet state that would help them against the West.
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Nov 18, 2013 01:33
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:Didn't the Soviets pause outside the city for the duration or the Warsaw uprising? This is still a point of contention. The Polish version goes that Stalin ordered his armies to halt to get rid of the Home Army, while the Russian version goes that the Red Army was forced to halt its advance for rest and refit after having spent all their energy advancing from Pripet to Vistula. The Red Army units approaching Warsaw were actually pushed back by German counter-attacks so I don't find the Russian version too unlikely. Could Soviets have saved the city if they really wanted to? Possibly, but Warsaw wasn't important enough strategically or politically for them to try it.
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Nov 18, 2013 01:44
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This question obviously cannot be conclusively settled. I find the polish perspective overall more believable. On the other hand, to play the devil's advocate, the Soviets are somewhat damned both ways - if they had hurried to liberate the city, they would be accused of trying to steal the nationalists' glory in retaking the city, thus increasing their influence in post war Poland. Further, if the Germans had withdrawn from Warsaw instead of expending considerable effort securing a city they were about to give up anyway, Stalin would have been left in a very much worse position for having delayed the advance, having allowed the Home Army a significant victory.
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Nov 18, 2013 01:58
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Nenonen posted:This is still a point of contention. The Polish version goes that Stalin ordered his armies to halt to get rid of the Home Army, while the Russian version goes that the Red Army was forced to halt its advance for rest and refit after having spent all their energy advancing from Pripet to Vistula. The Red Army units approaching Warsaw were actually pushed back by German counter-attacks so I don't find the Russian version too unlikely. Could Soviets have saved the city if they really wanted to? Possibly, but Warsaw wasn't important enough strategically or politically for them to try it. That was my point of contention with your post. There was a distinct possibility that the Russians deliberately withheld aid in order to install their own government in Poland. Premature implies some screw-up on the part of the Polish Nationalists. I suppose in some sense there was. In that, they expected the same sort of assistance from the Russians that the French Resistance got in Paris and/or misjudged the ability of the Red Army to continue its advance. vains fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Nov 18, 2013 |
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Nov 18, 2013 02:11
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:That was my point of contention with your post. There was a distinct possibility that the Russians deliberately withheld aid in order to install their own government in Poland. Premature implies some screw-up on the part of the Polish Nationalists. I suppose in some sense there was. In that, they expected the same sort assistance from the Russians that the French Resistance got in Paris and/or misjudged the ability of the Red Army to continue its advance. There is no "distinct posibility" about it. If you read the messages exchanged between the Western Allies and the Soviets during the uprising, the Soviets flat out say that the nationalist leadership is illegitimate and pro-german. They also refuse Allied transport planes the right to land on Soviet airfields. The question is if they actually went one step further and refused to advance when they could have.
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Nov 18, 2013 02:39
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And given Katyn and the mass deportations, the Soviets clearly didn't want any independence-minded people active in Poland, regardless of their political persuasion.
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Nov 18, 2013 03:37
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Why were the Germans wasting their energy crushing the uprising when the Red loving army was just over yonder? You'd think they'd be trying to get the gently caress away.
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Nov 18, 2013 07:54
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Ron Jeremy posted:Why were the Germans wasting their energy crushing the uprising when the Red loving army was just over yonder? You'd think they'd be trying to get the gently caress away. Warsaw is a major regional transportation hub as well as a primary crossing of the Vistula River. It was also a relatively dense urban center that theoretically could be used as a defensive position to stall Soviet operations. Abandoning Warsaw would have meant conceding those advantages to the Soviets and probably made the whole front indefensible. Warsaw is also somewhat nearby East Prussia, at the time an actual part of Germany proper and populated by a bunch of actual Germans, and taking Warsaw eased the way towards Königsberg. Additionally, the Soviet summer offensive had petered out and their preparations for the fall were for a thrust southward against Romania, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, so there wasn't a compelling reason to run from Warsaw just then. Hitler also really wanted to kill all the Poles for daring to rise against him, and punish them by systematically destroying Warsaw. Just to be a giant rear end in a top hat, really. He also had some lunatic ideas about Warsaw serving as a fortress city to stop the Soviet's cold before they could get close to Germany. In practice when the Vistula-Oder Offensive finally commenced the Germans in Warsaw did pretty much what you suggested, and Hitler was super pissed and fired some generals for failing to resist Soviet forces that probably had 10 times the combat power of their played-out and pathetically understrength formations.
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Nov 18, 2013 08:52
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EvanSchenck posted:In practice when the Vistula-Oder Offensive finally commenced the Germans in Warsaw did pretty much what you suggested, and Hitler was super pissed and fired some generals for failing to resist Soviet forces that probably had 10 times the combat power of their played-out and pathetically understrength formations. And thus began the most distinguished military career of one Heinrich Himmler. quote:On 25 January 1945, in spite of Himmler's lack of military experience, Hitler appointed him as commander of the hastily-formed Army Group Vistula (Heeresgruppe Weichsel) to halt the Soviet Red Army's Vistula–Oder Offensive into Pomerania.[156] Himmler established his command centre at Schneidemühl, using his special train, Sonderzug Steiermark, as his headquarters. The train had only one telephone line, inadequate maps, and no signal detachment or radios with which to establish communication and relay military orders. Himmler seldom left the train, only worked about four hours per day, and insisted on a daily massage and a lengthy nap afterwards.[157] He was unable to devise any viable plans for completion of the military objectives. Under pressure from Hitler over the worsening military situation, Himmler became anxious and unable to give him coherent reports.[158] Hitler was unwilling to admit that his choice of commander had been inadequate....
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Nov 18, 2013 08:57
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I guess Hitler probably wasn't the best person to determine military policy. How did they even get this far with someone like that at the helm?
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Nov 18, 2013 09:06
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RE: thin swords. Swedish army used rapiers both for infantry and cavalry. The pictured Karoliner era cavalrymen had also carbine and two pistols. HEGEL, did the 30 Years War's Swedish cavalry really use arquebuses? I've always thought that they had only pistols. I don't have any real sources to base my opinion on, and internet sources are conflicting. Though arquebus would make more sense because it's cheaper than two pistols. Hogge Wild fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Nov 18, 2013 |
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Nov 18, 2013 09:09
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Regarding Warsaw, there is also the fact that the Soviet forces could and did cross the river - on September 16, the 3rd Infantry Division of the 1st Polish Army (formed by the Soviets from post-1939 GULAG prisoners and whoever else more or less Polish they had on hand after Anders's army left to join the Brits) crossed the Vistula in the Czerniaków area and formed a bridgehead, joining up with the Home Army forces fighting in the city. At that point, they were very conspicuously deprived of all air and artillery support, took heavy casualties and went back across the river a week later. Why did the Soviet command do that? 
Tevery Best fucked around with this message at 11:28 on Nov 18, 2013 |
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Nov 18, 2013 09:34
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My (uneducated) guess was that it might have been a CYA effort. If the uprising succeeded, Uncle Joe could say "hey, I sent some guys to help y'all, now vote in a pro-soviet legislature" after the war.
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Nov 18, 2013 10:11
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Hogge Wild posted:HEGEL, did the 30 Years War's Swedish cavalry really use arquebuses? I've always thought that they had only pistols. I don't have any real sources to base my opinion on, and internet sources are conflicting. Though arquebus would make more sense because it's cheaper than two pistols.  To me, though, it stands to reason, because (1) the Swedish army was bumping up against the limits of its ability to provide for itself, both in terms of making things domestically and in terms of paying for someone else to make them (for instance, I know that Swedish cav was also lightly armored, except for the Germans among them) and (2) the musketeers/cav formations and the rejection of the caracole imply that they're compensating for a perceived lack. They turned out to have been great ideas (the first is unequivocally cool; the second is either the coolest thing ever or not that important depending on which historian you listen to), but they were conceived of as ersatz. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 11:33 on Nov 18, 2013 |
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Nov 18, 2013 11:02
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I've read about cav operating in Ireland during the War of the 3 Kingdoms, who were supposedly equipped as pistol cavalry, but unable to get enough pistols to go around to they were issued with lances instead.
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Nov 18, 2013 11:27
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Also, I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure that "a rapier" is a civilian sword by definition, that you can have long thin swords with (depending on the period) no sharpened edges and it's a rapier if you're on a city street and something else if you're on the field, but (1) I am not entirely sure about this, and (2) who the gently caress cares? 
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Nov 18, 2013 11:30
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Double
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Nov 18, 2013 11:30
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Grand Prize Winner posted:My (uneducated) guess was that it might have been a CYA effort. If the uprising succeeded, Uncle Joe could say "hey, I sent some guys to help y'all, now vote in a pro-soviet legislature" after the war. I doubt that, given that by late September it was clear that the uprising was going down soon and that after the war the Soviets simply started murdering the opposition and rigging elections anyway, not to mention that the whole "there was a non-Ghetto uprising in Warsaw" thing got promptly swept under the rug and was censored in People's Republic of Poland pretty much until the late 80s.
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Nov 18, 2013 11:32
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Incidentally, what would you consider the most interesting mistakes on the battlefield in military history?
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Nov 18, 2013 12:25
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veekie posted:Incidentally, what would you consider the most interesting mistakes on the battlefield in military history? The British artillery could've been a wee bit more accurate when firing on a certain motorcycle courier.
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Nov 18, 2013 13:59
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Could someone do an effortpost on Prussia's kings? Hegel did an amazing one on Big Fred already, but, reading up on Prussia, it seems incredible how often the Hohenzollern monarchs have constant swings in personality and style of rule from generation to generation, like a massive pendulum made of iron and guns.
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Nov 18, 2013 14:13
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