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SlothfulCobra posted:
As far as I'm aware it was more common to find people volunteering/pressganged for either side and then being paid/subisdised, like the Danish, some of whom served the British Merchant Marine and other who served the SS. Somebody far more knowledgeable than I will probably correct that though. WW1 I have no idea.
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Nov 24, 2013 15:38
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AdmiralSmeggins posted:As far as I'm aware it was more common to find people volunteering/pressganged for either side and then being paid/subisdised, like the Danish, some of whom served the British Merchant Marine and other who served the SS. Somebody far more knowledgeable than I will probably correct that though. There was the Flying Tigers in WWII who were a bunch of ex-american airforce vets who fought for the nationalist Chinese against the Japanese. Also I suppose the French Foreign Legion which fought in various battles kind of counts. Beyond that I'm drawing blanks for mercs.
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Nov 24, 2013 15:44
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Ferrosol posted:There was the Flying Tigers in WWII who were a bunch of ex-american airforce vets who fought for the nationalist Chinese against the Japanese. Also I suppose the French Foreign Legion which fought in various battles kind of counts. Beyond that I'm drawing blanks for mercs. On traditional mercs I'm drawing a blank too, but I think the Allied sent some intelligence types to Burma and Malaysia to pay for some local potentates to fight on their behalf.
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Nov 24, 2013 16:28
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There were a lot of foreigners involved with the Communists, Nationalists, and warlords in China who weren't affiliated with any particular government. Mao in particular didn't care for the Germans who went into CCP service because they tended not to be able to adapt to the CCP's situation.
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Nov 24, 2013 16:54
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Ferrosol posted:There was the Flying Tigers in WWII who were a bunch of ex-american airforce vets who fought for the nationalist Chinese against the Japanese. Also I suppose the French Foreign Legion which fought in various battles kind of counts. Beyond that I'm drawing blanks for mercs. Lots of Americans went to fight for the Entente before the US joined in. Aviators in particular.
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Nov 24, 2013 17:07
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I did an effortpost on the Flying Tigers years ago if someone wants to dig that up. That was as mercenary/commercial a wartime expedition as there's ever been.Azran posted:Bewbies, I loved your effort posts about planes. I'd love to hear about all the stuff like self-sealing tanks, ammo counters, sights and the like; how did all those develop through the years? When did fixed landing gear disappear? Did WW1 fighter pilots even get parachutes/straps? Self sealing tanks were a really simple and really elegant solution to a big problem; they just had a layer of rubber that expanded when it touched oil and thus closed off any holes. The main issue was its weight, but everyone figured it was worth the cost except for the Japanese. Eventually the US started "floating" tanks, suspended in the wing/fuselage, which gave them the ability to expand if struck and added another layer of resiliency. The basic idea is still in use today, although now we use stuff like internal structure (ie, a "honeycomb" or something) and counterpressure to make the tanks even tougher. The actual performance of high end tanks is obviously classified but on a 4th gen fighter you can basically shoot the tank with anything short of outright destroying it and not start a fire or cause a significant leak. As far as I'm aware only the Luftwaffe had proper ammo counters, they were just little white bars on the console. The Brits might have had a system in later Spitfires but I'm honestly not sure. Most countries did something like putting a string of tracers on the last 50 rounds of a belt to let the pilot know when he was reaching the end. As for landing gear and whatnot, I'll take the lazy way and offer this for reading: The Boeing 247. It wasn't the first plane to use all of these technologies (retractable gear, cantilever wing, all metal, monocoque construction, et al) but it was the first to combine all of them into one airframe. In that plane you can basically see every aircraft that fought during WWII to one degree or another, particularly the bombers and really particularly the USAAF heavies. If you have any more specific questions about this stuff I'm glad to try and answer! bewbies fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Nov 24, 2013 |
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Nov 24, 2013 17:10
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bewbies posted:
This was swiftly done away with after everyone realized that letting the enemy know when you are about to run out of ammo is a terrible idea.
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Nov 24, 2013 17:25
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ArchangeI posted:This was swiftly done away with after everyone realized that letting the enemy know when you are about to run out of ammo is a terrible idea. Yes and no; this is actually kind of complicated. The RAF's 303, the VVS's 7.62mm, the Luftwaffe's 7.92mm, and the USAAF's .30 and .50 belts all started the war with something like a 4:1 ratio. Coincidentally enough all of these air forces had exactly the same problem: the tracers had different ballistics from the non-tracer rounds, so aiming off of the tracers was...misleading at best. The also experienced the same problem you're describing, as the tracers were the same rounds meant for ground troops and thus burned really brightly and in all directions. By 1941 or so everyone had adopted tracers that were really visible only to the rear (in daytime at least) due to color and the size of the fuel; this meant that it wasn't a big deal to go back to putting a "warning" at the end of an ammo belt anymore. It was a standard practice for all USAAF/USN planes to the end of the war; the RAF did it in its .303 belts, and the Russians did it on everything but heavy cannons.
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Nov 24, 2013 17:32
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I recently went to the HGM (Milhist Museum) in Vienna and was really amazed at their incredible collection. Specially with the incredible collection of medieval/renaissance artillery they had on a small building and the various collections regarding the siege of Vienna conducted by the Ottomans. That being said, I've been always an admirer of the Ottoman Empire, and thus would like to know about: A: Were the Janissaries really the elite unit that most historians claim to be? B: What sparked the transition that made the Empire who put the Byzantines out of their misery and regularly terrorized Europe into the "sick man" jobber that was regularly humiliated until the Crimean War?
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Nov 24, 2013 18:15
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Plutonis posted:A: Were the Janissaries really the elite unit that most historians claim to be? A: Yes and no. You are, you have to remember, talking about over 500 years of history, there is going to be some variation. Basically they were a professional class of soldiers, whether you want to call that "an elite unit," well, it's certainly better than a bunch of drafted peasants. Eventually they get blamed, in part anyway, for the fall of the Ottomans, for being too decadent and looking after their own interests instead of the Sultan's. (Which is fascinating in its own way, since it's basically an artificial 'ethnic' group within the Empire. Identity is interesting.) B: The traditional explanation is "lol decadent Muslims," but it was basically two factors. First, as the Portuguese rounded Africa and the Spanish started digging into the New World (literally) Europe was able to access trade in China (at that point, as it will be in ~100 years or so, the unquestionable center of the world economy) without the trading through the Ottomans. Second, they simply hadn't been, well, mean enough ~three, four hundred years before. Nationalism is a weird deal but the short version is that the Ottomans lost out when it came to the fore.
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Nov 24, 2013 18:58
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OK, who here hasn't been to the HGM?Plutonis posted:A: Were the Janissaries really the elite unit that most historians claim to be?  ), a good drill which allowed them to use these firearms effectively, and good morale. Later on, although I don't know so much about this, the fact that they were so highly respected and that it was possible for them to make lots of money as officials when they got older led to corruptions like people with no interest in the military bribing the government to let them/their kids join. Edit: F, B with nearly the same goddamn phrase, wow. Edit 2: I've heard good things about Guns for the Sultan, if you're interested in Ottoman weapons production, but I haven't read it yet so if it turns out to suck don't blame me. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Nov 24, 2013 |
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Nov 24, 2013 19:01
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bewbies posted:I did an effortpost on the Flying Tigers years ago if someone wants to dig that up. That was as mercenary/commercial a wartime expedition as there's ever been.  Thanks a lot. Gotta say your posts got me into reading more about planes, and I'm just in love with the topic.At what altitude did pilots engage at during WW1? Open canopies must have limited them in some measure?
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Nov 24, 2013 19:03
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I've been following this thread (and the last one before it) for a while, and I was looking for some book recommendations on a few topics that have piqued my interest. I just started reading Europe's Tragedy by Wilson, in part due to Hegel and the old thread. I was wondering what are some good books regarding the Russian and Spanish Civil Wars?
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Nov 24, 2013 19:59
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Saint Guinness posted:I've been following this thread (and the last one before it) for a while, and I was looking for some book recommendations on a few topics that have piqued my interest. I just started reading Europe's Tragedy by Wilson, in part due to Hegel and the old thread. I was wondering what are some good books regarding the Russian and Spanish Civil Wars? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage_to_Catalonia
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Nov 24, 2013 20:24
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I have Franco's International Brigades: Adventurers, Fascists, and Christian Crusaders in the Spanish Civil War and Homage to Catalonia laying around unread. The fact that I bought them though means they must have been good since I pretty much only get heavily recommended books. The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation also has some small parts about the Basque role in the civil war. I also have Russia in Revolution 1900-1930 by Harrison E. Salisbury laying around unread and it was a gift so I can't vouch to its quality but it does have loads of gorgeous pictures.
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Nov 24, 2013 20:27
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the JJ posted:Second, they simply hadn't been, well, mean enough ~three, four hundred years before. Nationalism is a weird deal but the short version is that the Ottomans lost out when it came to the fore. Please explain this.
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Nov 24, 2013 20:28
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Anthony Beevor also has a book on the Spanish Civil War which is pretty good but he can get bogged down into the X regiment was at Y hill details a bit too much.
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Nov 24, 2013 20:34
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Please explain this. The Ottomans had a lot of enclaves and autonomous, unintegrated populations. They didn't really Turkify anyone and their attempts to convert were pretty half-hearted as well. Basically, the millet let sub-groups stay cohesive, largely self-governing and self-governing entities and keep their own identities. This worked fine for most of the Middle Ages when all you needed from your population was some taxes and could compete with, say, slave soldiers and a small landed military caste. ~1800 it became pretty clear that this was going to lose out to levee-en-masse and national identities. It's more or less the same thing that happened to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Prussia, in staying German, had a much better time of things. E: This is not to say that nations did just naturally appear and work out for the best. Read Hobsbawm's Nations and Nationalism since 1780, it's a pretty short look at that process. the JJ fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Nov 24, 2013 |
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Nov 24, 2013 20:43
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a travelling HEGEL posted:OK, who here hasn't been to the HGM? Firearms. Yeah, they made pretty good stuff, but look at the iconic turkish weapon - the bow. I've been interested in ottoman archery tackle for the last 2 years, which led me to building these bows. Or at least trying to. The knowledge and capital involved in building a working hornbow is staggering. Look at this:  That core was the work of 3 months and it was hosed because of some minor mistake involving a little too much heat. Today we can get the materials for such a bow from the internet with a little time for recherche, but look at the checklist for the basic bow. - The wood for the core is maple, usually it was Acer Tartaricum, which was harvested at the Crimea. Although, other types of maple can be used, this type of maple is the best. It needs to be flawless, without knots and pins. - The horn is from a special species of waterbuffalo with very long horns. For a working bow, you need 2 of around 70cm length. Ram's horn can be used, but those are usually twisted and require several additional worksteps to straigthen. - The glue used to bind the components is a mix of fish glue (cooked from the air bubbles of sturgeons from the danube), and sinew glue. Bows of higher quality are solely made from fishglue. There's certain advantages that this glue has in terms of workability and material properties. - Sinew from a working animal, or a wild animal. Usually it's either dried back strap or leg tendon. You smash the tendon and separate the fibers, so that they are of the size of dental floss. That's probably the most tiresome part about the process of building these bows. Back strap is faster to process and longer, but the result will be more coarse. You also might need to degrease it before glueing. - Covering of horse/calf leather or sometimes birch bark. - Silk for your string - A shitload of custom tools that you have to build yourself or adapt. Completing such a bow will take between 9-12 months (mostly waiting for stuff to dry), but longer seasoning gives better results. The cores were often steamed while green and rested in the bench for a year. Each workstep is fraught with mistakes that might show months later and make it a piece of firewood. Or in my case, kill it instantly in the first 1/4th. So to understand the scale of organization and capital behind a single workshop - a master bowmaker and his crew making a batch of 100 of these things for your janissaries - you just have to have your poo poo together. Foremost, you need somebody to pay for all the rare materials and feed the master and his guys, and lots of other guys down in the pyramid working like a clockwork to keep them flowing before you even have a working product.
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Nov 24, 2013 20:56
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That's really interesting. If you were working full time and no bow ended up as firewood, how many bows do you think that you could manufacture per year?
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Nov 24, 2013 21:04
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And then, if we can believe Keegan, most of your best bowmen die in the Battle of Lepanto!
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Nov 24, 2013 21:16
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Davincie posted:And then, if we can believe Keegan, most of your best bowmen die in the Battle of Lepanto! Guilmartin said the same thing.
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Nov 24, 2013 21:22
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Ferrosol posted:There was the Flying Tigers in WWII who were a bunch of ex-american airforce vets who fought for the nationalist Chinese against the Japanese. Also I suppose the French Foreign Legion which fought in various battles kind of counts. Beyond that I'm drawing blanks for mercs. You have the Eagle Squadrons, composed of US pilots who volunteered for the RAF and RCAF. With the arrival of the USAAF in England, most were absorbed into the American air forces. Whether or not they qualify as "mercenaries" is questionable, given that they fought more for ideals than money (British military personnel were generally low-paid compared to their American counterparts).
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Nov 24, 2013 21:36
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I seriously have no idea. The core can be made with basic woodworking tools, it's fairly easy while the wood is green. You might need 3 hours or so, soaking takes around a week, steaming an hour. After that the limbs rest separately in your forms for 3 months (or longer if you want to be spergy). Separating the sinew to fibers is really really slow. I've spent the evenings of a week to separate leg tendons, but only got about 1/3rd of the ammount needed for a complete bow (everything needs to be weigthed in a specific ratio). The great authority for building these bows meant that a single bow takes around 1 week working around the clock, without the drying and seasoning. Now, you can't just assume that a single person could make 52 bows in a year. I'm pretty sure each workstep had a dedicated guy. One guy just processing sinew all year  . Keep on hammering, apprentice  Well, it's complicated. I've read that each workstep was executed in a certain season. Which makes alot of sense if you look to the properties of the glue, it will gel slower in a hot and humid climate. The slow gelling capacity is the prime feat of fish glue. Hide and sinew glue gels fast (in this state it will look bloated, and doesn't seem to be glueing right, you cannot correct errors in this state). I've worked with it recently and in summer, the difference is striking. At around 20°C it gels in less than 30 secs, while it took around 2 mins in summer. Applying sinew is very stressfull, you need alot of precision and routine (and preparation). If the glue gels slower, you have room to correct mistakes. You can imagine the process of glueing a bunch of hair perfectly combed to a wooden board, the glue all slippery, and then overlapping with the next layer. Sounds like fun? Nope. The preparation of the glueline of core and horn also is beneficial in a warm environment (and ofc also the final glue-up), while the wood of the core is best dried slowly in a dry and temperate area. Spring and winter would be used to saw and sand the horn and make the grooves, and our poor apprentice has to keep hammering and separating that sinew all year long. Sawing & sanding the horn by hand is a loving ordeal. e: There's a few guys around making these bows for real monies today. This famous guy here also makes hornbows: http://www.yumi-bows.com/yumi.html he states that he makes around 6 a year (but he does that on the side). Lukas Novotny of http://www.salukibow.com/ makes them too, but I didn't ask him how many he does a year. Others make them too, but they're usually very expensive at around ~2.000€ a piece. There are still korean bowmakers that build solely hornbows for a living, those guys could give an account of what's possible. Those bows are no high drawweigth warbows though and are of slightly different construction. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Nov 24, 2013 |
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Nov 24, 2013 21:42
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That is quite a nice post about bowmaking! To be honest I was only aware of the process that the English used to make their famed Longbows and a bit of the Mongolian method for their composite bows (which is in fact much alike the one you just posted).a travelling HEGEL posted:Edit 2: I've heard good things about Guns for the Sultan, if you're interested in Ottoman weapons production, but I haven't read it yet so if it turns out to suck don't blame me. Do you know if it talks about the famous Dardanelles Gun? It's incredible how the same bombard that was used to crush Constantinople's walls was used to sink ships three hundred years later! Plutonis fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Nov 25, 2013 |
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Nov 25, 2013 05:36
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Mercenaries in WW1 & WW2? I'm surprised no one brought up the Gurkhas.
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Nov 25, 2013 09:52
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Outside Dawg posted:Mercenaries in WW1 & WW2? I'm surprised no one brought up the Gurkhas. They're not mercenaries, given how they are an incorporated part of the national army.
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Nov 25, 2013 10:29
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Alchenar posted:They're not mercenaries, given how they are an incorporated part of the national army. Wiki posted:There are Gorkha military units in the Nepalese, British and the Indian army (Gorkhas) enlisted in Nepal. Although they meet many of the requirements of Article 47 [3] of Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions regarding mercenaries, they are exempt under clauses 47(a)(c)(d)(e)&(f) similar to the French Foreign Legion. Every definition I have ever seen, defines a mercenary as,"one that serves merely for wages; especially: a soldier hired into foreign service", ergo, when serving the British Crown they are a mercenary as they are serving in a foreign military for pay. (e)despite the efforts of the employing powers to play with the niceties of diplomacy and treaty to obscure the truth of their practices. Outside Dawg fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Nov 25, 2013 |
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Nov 25, 2013 11:13
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Outside Dawg posted:How one defines a mercenary, depends a great deal on whose side they fight. If they are serving under the flags of either India or Nepal(the lands in which they reside) then no they are not mercenaries, serving under the British flag they are indeed mercenaries. And yet you didn't bother to follow the definition in your own link. That's the kind of superficial bad posting that belongs in the D&D post. quote:Art 47. Mercenaries Mercenaries are not people 'paid to fight' because that's literally all professional soldiers. Mercenaries are not incorporated members of the armed forces of a nation, which is that the Ghurka regiment is. 'Specially recruited' to mean to fight in a particular conflict, which the Ghurkas are not.
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Nov 25, 2013 11:45
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Plutonis posted:Do you know if it talks about the famous Dardanelles Gun? It's incredible how the same bombard that was used to crush Constantinople's walls was used to sink ships three hundred years later! Edit: Alchenar posted:That's the kind of superficial bad posting that belongs in the D&D post. Outside Dawg, it's possible to serve your own head of state as a mercenary, you know that, right? The US has some this very minute. Edit 2: Saint Guinness posted:I just started reading Europe's Tragedy by Wilson, in part due to Hegel and the old thread. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Nov 25, 2013 |
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Nov 25, 2013 13:54
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I think it is more as a cultural thing. I don't think we British see them as Mercenaries. We just see them as soldiers. Personally I think they should have their own independent category of International Bad Asses. Any good online sources for Victorian era uniforms? like early era stuff? around 1840-50 is the period I'm curious about. SeanBeansShako fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Nov 25, 2013 |
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Nov 25, 2013 14:30
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SeanBeansShako posted:I think it is more as a cultural thing. I don't think we British see them as Mercenaries. We just see them as soldiers. No it's right there in the Geneva convention. They're not specially recruited to fight in conflicts. They aren't paid more than regular soldiers. They aren't separately organised to the regular army. The Ghurkas and the French Foreign Legion are historical peculiarities but they aren't mercenaries.
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Nov 25, 2013 14:33
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Alchenar posted:No it's right there in the Geneva convention. They're not specially recruited to fight in conflicts. They aren't paid more than regular soldiers. They aren't separately organised to the regular army. The Ghurkas and the French Foreign Legion are historical peculiarities but they aren't mercenaries. I imagine the British wrote it specifically to protect their interests so that no one else could get foreign help in their armies.
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Nov 25, 2013 14:41
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Alchenar posted:No it's right there in the Geneva convention. They're not specially recruited to fight in conflicts. They aren't paid more than regular soldiers. They aren't separately organised to the regular army. The Ghurkas and the French Foreign Legion are historical peculiarities but they aren't mercenaries.
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Nov 25, 2013 14:48
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veekie posted:The bolded seems the most significant bit to me. Mercenaries basically have to have their own organization structure, regardless, right? Depending on the period, they may or may not be legally autonomous units. The dudes I study have their own courts, code, and executioners (during the 30YW--I don't know when they stopped, which is one thing I'd like to find out in my research), while you can track the loss of independence of the non-French people who serve France, for example, by the replacement of their officers and administrators with French ones. (This goes on for hundreds of years, but Bernard of Saxe-Weimar is the last German general in French service. When he dies a French noble, presumably loyal to the French crown instead of his own agenda, takes his place.) HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Nov 25, 2013 |
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Nov 25, 2013 14:52
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Alchenar posted:No it's right there in the Geneva convention. They're not specially recruited to fight in conflicts. They aren't paid more than regular soldiers. They aren't separately organised to the regular army. The Ghurkas and the French Foreign Legion are historical peculiarities but they aren't mercenaries. Exactly. A guy in the Gurkha brigade is a regular soldier in the regular British army, the same as every other regular soldier in the regular British army, he's part of the same command structure and subject to the same regulation. He's not recruited to fight in any particular armed conflict, he's just recruited to be in the Army. He doesn't receive compensation in excess of that paid to other British soldiers (quite the contrary in fact, when it comes to pensions etc). Compare to the Flying Tigers: (a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict; most definitely, the US wasn't at war but these guys resigned their commissions to go fight in China. (b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities; again, oh yeah. (c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party; yea, verily. You can validly argue about how much they were motivated by the pay but it's not arguable that the pay wasn't "substantially in excess" of what similar duties paid for what passed for regular Chinese army, however you definite that. Hell, they were getting paid multiples of what they'd be earning in the US military, even before considering the bonuses for shot-down enemy aircraft. (d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict; (e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and (f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces. So in order, that's no, no, and no. (f) is debatable, I suppose, it's not like the whole thing wasn't a subterfuge to get around the US's official neutrality, and obviously they were brought back into the fold when war were declared, but on paper they'd resigned and the whole point is that they *weren't* there officially. You don't get to do things under the table to preserve the US's neutral stance and still maintain you're there officially so you're not a mercenary.
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Nov 25, 2013 14:55
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The reason mercenaries in the modern context are illegal and don't get POW rights is because there's only one reason you'd pay a bunch of people to go into a warzone but not give them uniforms or incorporate them into your armed forces, and that's so that you can get them to commit war crimes for you but without a direct connection or chain of accountability leading back to you (or in the WW2 context, where you want to participate in warfighting but not actually declare war). That's your actual harm. If you want to take a holistic approach to the question 'what is a mercenary?' then you need to be asking whether the people you are looking at are being used to circumvent the rules of war in some way.
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Nov 25, 2013 15:30
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I'm surprised there's no mention of the Lafayette Escadrille and the less specific Lafayette Flying Corps (the former was a proper unit, the latter being more of a group title for Americans who volunteered to fly for the Entente). While the movie Flyboys was a (albeit decently choreographed in the action scenes) complete shitshow, the base story of a bunch of American pilots heading to France to fly for the Entente during WWI is true and well-documented, as it was an effort by the Entente to drum up American (neutral at the time) public support for entering the war, as well as serving as an actual air combat force. They were initially called the Escadrille Américaine, but once Germany found out they called France on it, who promptly renamed it. Obviously the Lafayette (as in Marquis de Lafayette of the American Revolution) reference is self-explanatory.
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Nov 25, 2013 16:35
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I might be wrong, but didn't those guys fight for practically free, instead of being hired to fight? Can't really call them mercenaries then.
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Nov 25, 2013 18:30
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a travelling HEGEL posted:
Yes, I believe the current "politically correct" term is Private Military Contractor, the US government (unless something has changed recently that I am unaware of), justifies this by their status as a participatory nation and not a signatory one. Alchenar posted:And yet you didn't bother to follow the definition in your own link. That's the kind of superficial bad posting that belongs in the D&D post. Yet, in your rush to chastise, you skimmed my post and saw what you wanted to see instead of what was written, I stated a dictionary definition including the words "one that serves merely for wages", which you related as "paid to fight", which is not the same thing. One could choose to point out that your own reply is superficial in that regard, as well as bad posting. As to the Geneva Accords/Protocols, I believe I addressed that, which apparently you either did not read, did not comprehend or chose to ignore. So I'll just put it back out there for you, "despite the efforts of the employing powers to play with the niceties of diplomacy and treaty to obscure the truth of their practices." , which refers to the protocols.
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Nov 25, 2013 18:47
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