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Osprey books seem to have a reputation as being awesome amongst wargamers, but I suspect that's due to lots of pictures and maps more than the quality of the text having bought a few over the years.
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Dec 2, 2013 19:37
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Arquinsiel posted:Osprey books seem to have a reputation as being awesome amongst wargamers, but I suspect that's due to lots of pictures and maps more than the quality of the text having bought a few over the years.  them.Edit: But I lost a day of work today due to bullshit so I'm trying to be at least a little productive by reading whatever I could find until I give up and drink the hot spiced wine I found in the common room (it's the cheapest brand, sold by the quart in a plastic jug, but at least I didn't pay for it), which may not have been the greatest of ideas. Edit 2: This wine tastes really bad. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Dec 2, 2013 |
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Dec 2, 2013 19:39
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This one's about the War Of Spanish Succession (probably), but the first textual evidence for it is from the 1780s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QJFwQcEOAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxPw6QPW2ZQ She's wrong about not being able to travel while she's pregnant though; last week I found two rolls from the same company, written less than a month apart--in the first one, one of the corporals had one child and in the second roll he had two. Edit: Unless the Musterschreiber hosed up: he was 23 years old and it was his first job. The handwriting is educated but clumsy, and every time he makes a flourish, ink spatters onto the page. His letters look windblown. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 2, 2013 23:33
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Is there much of a consensus on what was the earliest organised battle on any actual records? Wikipedia says Megiddo but I found myself wondering if there were any other good candidates.
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Dec 3, 2013 00:11
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Come to think of it, what happened to relations between France and the Ottoman Empire after the revolution? Suddenly France is all different and they king's guillotined and meanwhile the Sultan is the autocratickest of the autocrats. Did they assume they were safe since all of Central Europe separated the two powers or did they start getting nervous? Empires of the Sand by Efraim and Inari Karsh is a very good book that deals with the Middle East from the 19th century to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. It opens with this topic and the situation was actually quite a bit more complex than that, as both the Ottoman leadership and the web of alliances between the European powers were also changing radically at the same time. This is vastly oversimplified, but should act as a good starting point for further research if you're interested: Selim III became Sultan in 1789, so he was just getting his reign established when the French Revolution kicked off. He was a bit of a modernist, so news of the revolution was actually welcomed by him for two reasons: 1) it meant that established structures in Europe were being drastically changed and this could lead to confusion, upheaval, possible war, and other things that would make Europe divided and unlikely to care very much about what the Ottoman Empire was up to, and 2) because it showed that the world was changing and that it would be important to make reforms and modernize the empire and its military. Then Napoleon came along and invaded Egypt, nominally an Ottoman territory while Selim made his Janissary Corps very angry with his drive to modernize things, so he was replaced as Sultan by Mustafa IV. That put a damper on things until the Ottoman's got into a scuffle with the British and signed an alliance with France under Napoleon against Russia. Napoleon then brokered separate deals with both Russia and the Ottoman Empire that only benefited France and which pissed off both the Tsar and the Sultan. Napoleon and the Tsar at one point even discussed partitioning the Ottoman Empire. That "betrayal", coupled with how France's conquest of mainland Europe brought the borders of its empire against those of the Ottoman Empire, particularly around the southern borders of Austria, caused Mustafa to pursue the Dardanelles Treaty with the British (in which the British agreed to protect the Ottoman Empire from French aggression and to pursue a Russo-Ottoman peace treaty on their behalf). Then Mustafa himself was deposed in favor of Mahmud II. Shortly afterwards, Napoleon approached Mahmud with plans for another secret, Franco-Ottoman alliance, with very similar terms to what had originally been promised in the agreement with Mustafa that Napoleon had broken. Mahmud essentially told the French off and sent his envoys to negotiate a peace directly with Russia. This resulted in the Treaty of of Bucharest in mid-1812, which transferred some provinces between them (mostly to the benefit of the Ottomans) and included promises for the Ottomans not to invade Serbia. About a month later, Napoleon invaded Russia. Mahmud was furious that his advisers had rushed to sign a treaty with Russia and rebuff the French, thinking that he had missed out on a massive opportunity to get even more concessions. He ended up dismissing his grand vizier and chopping off the heads of the envoys who had signed the Treaty of Bucharest, but very wisely stayed out of European politics for the rest of his reign. Under subsequent Sultans, the Ottoman Empire repeatedly found itself allied with or against Britain, Russia, and/or France right up until the Ottoman Empire fell apart and Britain and France drew arbitrary borders around various parts of it to the tune of Yakity Sax to give us the Middle East we all know and love today. I Demand Food fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 01:27
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I've been on a book binge lately, and having burned myself out on the second world war was wondering if anyone had recommendations for books on WW1. My knowledge of that conflict doesn't extend much beyond trenches and mass slaughter, and it can't be much more depressing than Beevor's Stalingrad.
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Dec 3, 2013 02:44
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Not really military history, but All Quiet on the Western Front should pretty much be required reading. edit: also Dulce Et Decorum Est quote:Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, edit 2: huh this version is slightly different from the one I'm familiar with what Koramei fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 02:55
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Koramei posted:Not really military history, but All Quiet on the Western Front should pretty much be required reading. Yeah, the version I'm familiar with replaces "Of disappointed shells that dropped behind" with something like "of tired, outstripped five-nines that dropped behind." I think there are some other differences, but that's the one that sticks out because the place I read it noted "five-nine" as a 5.9 cm gas shell.
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Dec 3, 2013 03:12
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LeadSled posted:I've been on a book binge lately, and having burned myself out on the second world war was wondering if anyone had recommendations for books on WW1. My knowledge of that conflict doesn't extend much beyond trenches and mass slaughter, and it can't be much more depressing than Beevor's Stalingrad. The guns of august is fantastic.
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Dec 3, 2013 03:16
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Koramei posted:Not really military history, but All Quiet on the Western Front should pretty much be required reading. Contrast it with Jünger's Storms of Steel. It reads like someone made a Call of Duty WWI game and did a novelization of it.
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Dec 3, 2013 03:42
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LeadSled posted:I've been on a book binge lately, and having burned myself out on the second world war was wondering if anyone had recommendations for books on WW1. My knowledge of that conflict doesn't extend much beyond trenches and mass slaughter, and it can't be much more depressing than Beevor's Stalingrad.
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Dec 3, 2013 04:18
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Flesnolk posted:Is there much of a consensus on what was the earliest organised battle on any actual records? Wikipedia says Megiddo but I found myself wondering if there were any other good candidates. There are contemporary records of battle between Sumerian city-states going back to 2500 BC or so. And legends of even earlier ones from people like Gilgamesh. Most of them don't go into specifics about refused flanks or encirclements, but just say stuff like ”King Entemma of Lagash met the men of Umma on the field and destroyed them, and then tore down their gates and plundered their temples.” And then we have Urukagina of Lagash complaing about Zagesi of Umma returning the favor a few decades later, followed by Sargon boasting of his defeat of Zagesi and 50 of his ensis in a battle near Umma.
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Dec 3, 2013 04:18
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LeadSled posted:I've been on a book binge lately, and having burned myself out on the second world war was wondering if anyone had recommendations for books on WW1. My knowledge of that conflict doesn't extend much beyond trenches and mass slaughter, and it can't be much more depressing than Beevor's Stalingrad.  Oh to be starting on that wonderful journey again...
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Dec 3, 2013 04:30
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LeadSled posted:I've been on a book binge lately, and having burned myself out on the second world war was wondering if anyone had recommendations for books on WW1. My knowledge of that conflict doesn't extend much beyond trenches and mass slaughter, and it can't be much more depressing than Beevor's Stalingrad. A World Undone, by G.J. Meyer. I haven't read it in years so I can't really do it justice in a comment, but I remember that Meyer does a fantastic job of capturing the drama and insanity of the war in a way that's easier to follow than in something more academic like The Guns of August. A World Undone is to The Guns of August like having a good battlefield guide walk you though Gettysburg over several days is to Coddington's The Gettysburg Campaign.
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Dec 3, 2013 04:46
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Rent-A-Cop posted:I challenge you to find any book ever written more depressing than Johnny Got His Gun. It's not a book but "The Hell Called Treblinka" is pretty goddamn depressing for only being a chapter.
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Dec 3, 2013 05:59
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a travelling HEGEL posted:OK, despite what I told you earlier, I am reading an Osprey book on G.A.'s cavalry and there it says that they did have pistols, they were just called harquebusiers by the English because that was the English term for anyone who wasn't a curiassier. So I was probably wrong there, sorry. (Unless this is one of the Osprey books that suck--I know the one on Imperial 30YW infantry is) I checked the Wikipedia's Harquebusier article's source about Swedish cavalry, and guess what - it's the Osprey book. Almost every source I've seen, say that they used two pistols. But Sweden was a poor country whose workers' craftmanship wasn't good enough to produce large amount of wheellock or flintlock pistols. But they produced a shitload of matchlock guns. So it's almost certain that most of their cavalry used arquebuses. Maybe I should just send email to to some Swedish military history museum and ask them about this.
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Dec 3, 2013 07:51
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Hogge Wild posted:I checked the Wikipedia's Harquebusier article's source about Swedish cavalry, and guess what - it's the Osprey book. Coincidentally, if you're in Stockholm you should check out the Swedish Army museum, I really liked their permanent exhibit of the 30 years war. It's not super informative but they really get the feeling of the despair and slaughter right. Also when I visited you could try out a massive amount of uniforms which they also make available for the Stockholm Pride parade 
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Dec 3, 2013 10:39
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LeadSled posted:I've been on a book binge lately, and having burned myself out on the second world war was wondering if anyone had recommendations for books on WW1. My knowledge of that conflict doesn't extend much beyond trenches and mass slaughter, and it can't be much more depressing than Beevor's Stalingrad.  you're awesome. Nope, it is the worst.Paul Fussel, The Great War And Modern Memory. This one's a landmark, not really about the war as such but about the place it took in popular culture at the time and after. On some level, whenever we think about a war it's this one we're thinking about. (Contrast it with bewbies' [I think] article about what Haig was probably actually like as a commander for a sense of the way in which this view, while correct in some respects, is actually somewhat skewed.) Mark Thompson, The White War. That one's about the Italian WW1 experience which is, if anything, worse than that of the British. (Here, the popular image of the WW1-era high command as malevolently cavalier with the lives of others is entirely accurate.) My grandfather's older brother died in that thing. Raskolnikov38 posted:The guns of august is fantastic. Hogge Wild posted:I checked the Wikipedia's Harquebusier article's source about Swedish cavalry, and guess what - it's the Osprey book. I have seen a photograph of Swedish cav pistols, so at least one Swedish officer carried a pair of pistols--but it had a caption that the set would have cost something like twice that of a full suit of armor for a cuirassier, which is already impossibly expensive. I don't know if there is a modern analogue to the cost of these things--imagine running around the battlefield and your body armor is made by Miu Miu (is Miu Miu still in right now? Whatever's in), your guns by Alexander McQueen. I mean, it'd rule, but my point is it's a different world.  Edit: Apple. Edit 2: Console warriors. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 11:01
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Qvark posted:Coincidentally, if you're in Stockholm you should check out the Swedish Army museum, I really liked their permanent exhibit of the 30 years war. It's not super informative but they really get the feeling of the despair and slaughter right. Also when I visited you could try out a massive amount of uniforms which they also make available for the Stockholm Pride parade Yeah, I've been planning for while to take milhist tour in Stockholm. Heh, it's been ages when I last was sober when visiting Sweden. a travelling HEGEL posted:I have seen a photograph of Swedish cav pistols, so at least one Swedish officer carried a pair of pistols--but it had a caption that the set would have cost something like twice that of a full suit of armor for a cuirassier, which is already impossibly expensive. Weapon and armour prices and income for farmers in early 17th century England: Pair of flintlock pistols 45s Cuirass 26s Lance armor 80s Prosperous farmer per year 800s Labourer per year 180s Surprisingly cheap. But of course it was mass produced. Sources: http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/361/361-02.htm http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html
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Dec 3, 2013 12:24
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Rent-A-Cop posted:I challenge you to find any book ever written more depressing than Johnny Got His Gun. It's a tossup between All Quiet on the Western Front and Johnny Got His Gun. All Quiet... was based on real experience and has a powerful anti-war message. Johnny... is based on a single event that might not have actually occurred, and it feels more like an installment of Saw than an anti-war screed. Still loving depressing, though. For those who don't know, Johnny Got His Gun is about a soldier in World War I who loses all his limbs and his entire face, but through the miracles of modern medicine is kept alive. The whole book takes place inside his head. It's mostly famous today as the inspiration for Metallica's One.
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Dec 3, 2013 12:58
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Kolodny posted:A World Undone, by G.J. Meyer. I haven't read it in years so I can't really do it justice in a comment, but I remember that Meyer does a fantastic job of capturing the drama and insanity of the war in a way that's easier to follow than in something more academic like The Guns of August. A World Undone is to The Guns of August like having a good battlefield guide walk you though Gettysburg over several days is to Coddington's The Gettysburg Campaign. I'm reading through this too and while I'm only up to 1917 (goddamnit Zimmermann you arrogant sonofabitch) I can already say wholeheartedly that it's an excellent book, but I do also have Guns of August queued up right after.
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Dec 3, 2013 15:24
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ArchangeI posted:Contrast it with Jünger's Storms of Steel. It reads like someone made a Call of Duty WWI game and did a novelization of it. Junger was some kind of bizarre alien and our unspeakable horror was a minor irritation to him. He was however a really good author.
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Dec 3, 2013 15:58
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I know it changed quite a bit between revisions but I never really got much of the RAH RAH WAR vibe from the version of Storm of Steel that I read. To me it just seemed like a guy (who, granted, was particularly hard) telling his war experience.
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Dec 3, 2013 16:28
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Hogge Wild posted:Weapon and armour prices and income for farmers in early 17th century England: Edit: I notice, for instance, that in the link you gave there are a number of more expensive examples as well. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 16:47
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I imagine they'd have ordered some extremely expensive well custom made dueling pistols with a lot of silver filigree and only the finest darkened old oak. With their names and date inscribed too of course.
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Dec 3, 2013 17:01
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With regards to the Finnish cavalry shouting "Hakkaa päälle!" as a war cry I would say, as a Finn, that it's not actually implausible. Those words are really easy to chant (if you are a Finn) and we used them and other, similar short chants, in a large local boffer fighting event while advancing in a shield wall. There is also the fact to consider that using "Hakkaa päälle!" as a command to the Finnish cavalry to charge would have been sort of sensible for the officers who did not speak Finnish (read: most of them). It is a really short phrase and it means nothing in Swedish; so less chance of being misunderstood. You would want to keep your commands short and clear in a battle and the meaning of "Hakkaa päälle!" (" advance and hack them into pieces") is hard to misunderstand. Edit: and for the record, I'm finishing my Master's degree in History right now, I hope to graduate by January at the latest. Ataxerxes fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 17:07
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a travelling HEGEL posted:And I imagine the higher officers have something quite a bit snazzier, otherwise why bother going to war at all? SeanBeansShako posted:I imagine they'd have ordered some extremely expensive well custom made dueling pistols with a lot of silver filigree and only the finest darkened old oak. Here's an armor of Prince of Wales:  Not the same one as in the list, but in the same price range, ie. about hundred times more expensive than a commoner's armor. And Prince of Wales's (not the same one) pistols from 1801:  bewbies posted:I know it changed quite a bit between revisions but I never really got much of the RAH RAH WAR vibe from the version of Storm of Steel that I read. To me it just seemed like a guy (who, granted, was particularly hard) telling his war experience. Same here. There was really interesting stuff about infiltration tactics, trench warfare etc. in the book, and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about WWI. Hogge Wild fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 18:50
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Qvark posted:Coincidentally, if you're in Stockholm you should check out the Swedish Army museum, I really liked their permanent exhibit of the 30 years war. It's not super informative but they really get the feeling of the despair and slaughter right. Also when I visited you could try out a massive amount of uniforms which they also make available for the Stockholm Pride parade You can also try out two old-timey rifles (forget from when, before gun cotton/cartridges) and also a mauser and an AK 5 (Swedish license-built FN Minimi). I'm not so familiar with guns on a personal level, so i was a bit surprised that the smallest gun and the most modern, the AK, by far weighed the most. I guess it's only natural as it has more parts and has to withstand more pressure. On a display case nearby they also show the penetration of bullets in wood, soap and metal. Put's the Hollywood myth of hiding in cars and behind tables to rest. Before there was a sabre you could try out as well, but is not there anymore, sadly. As i've never ever have held any kind of sword it was interesting to get the feel of one. Of all bodyparts and muscles, for me the swinging it was most taxing on the wrists. Falukorv fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 20:49
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The AK is regarded as being pretty heavy for it's class AFAIK, but being only the second weapon of it's kind ever made that's forgivable. It was certainly lighter than the assault rifle archetype, the Stg-44.
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Dec 3, 2013 20:55
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Slavvy posted:The AK is regarded as being pretty heavy for it's class AFAIK, but being only the second weapon of it's kind ever made that's forgivable. It was certainly lighter than the assault rifle archetype, the Stg-44. No no no, read again, the gun is the Swedish Automatkarbin 5, not the Soviet Avtomat Kalashnikova 47. 
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Dec 3, 2013 20:58
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Slavvy posted:The AK is regarded as being pretty heavy for it's class AFAIK, but being only the second weapon of it's kind ever made that's forgivable. It was certainly lighter than the assault rifle archetype, the Stg-44. I edited in my post, but it's not an AK-47, but a modified FN Minimi. But it's the first version of the AK 5 made, which has alot more metal than the current version the Swedish Army uses, which has more polymer parts, including parts of the handle and the butt stock. I don't know exactly how much lighter, basing on what my untrained eye sees, as they have the current AK5C on display in the same museum which looks alot more plastic, while the old AK5 you can hold is almost completely metal, aside from the handle. Was the previous Swedish main service rifle, the AK4 (modified G3) any heavier? Falukorv fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 20:59
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By try out you mean just holding it right? Because I think I had that same AK 5 against my shoulder for a bit in 2006 IIRC. I imagine the AK 4 was heavier still although I've never held a G3 or FAL. The Haus der Geschichte in Bonn used to have demil-ed MPi-Ks/KMs/KMwhatevers (East German AKs) literally lying around somewhere in a corner during the early 2000s. Me and my friends did a perfect little VoPo Grenzer reenactment, with added Schiessbefehl against classmates. Ahh, highschool.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:23
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I googled it, but it's a FN FNC, not a Minimi. The Minimi is a LMG which would make sense to be heavy. Regarding the sabre, there's a thing known as "fencer's wrist" where the muscles on the bottom of the arm just behind the wrist joint will be rather obviously bulging out of the line of the arm from waving swords around. This happens with modern light olympic blades, so with a full-weight weapon it'd be even more pronounced.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:23
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No mention of The Price of Glory in WW1 book chat? Fantastic book about Verdun. The White War has been mentioned already, just want to second that. I've walked those mountains around Tolmin in Slovenia, I can't imagine fighting a single battle there, never mind loving 12.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:23
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Yeah why the hell did the Italians and Austro-Hungarians fight twelve battles of the Isonzo? Was there seriously no other place along the border that was feasible for operations? I mean, given the shittyness of that front in WWII I'm going to guess no, but why did Italy declare on A-H in the first place if it didn't have anywhere to go?
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Dec 3, 2013 21:33
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gradenko_2000 posted:Yeah why the hell did the Italians and Austro-Hungarians fight twelve battles of the Isonzo? Was there seriously no other place along the border that was feasible for operations? I mean, given the shittyness of that front in WWII I'm going to guess no, but why did Italy declare on A-H in the first place if it didn't have anywhere to go?
HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 21:41
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This time they won't expect it.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:45
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One of the more interesting things is how much trouble the various Italians had talking to each other. The Northerns could barely understand the Southerners, and the urban educated kids could barely understand the peasants.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:46
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Rabhadh posted:One of the more interesting things is how much trouble the various Italians had talking to each other. The Northerns could barely understand the Southerners, and the urban educated kids could barely understand the peasants. Meanwhile, the Italian Army battle cry was Avanti Savoia, "Forward The House Of Savoy!" It's not  a nation. Edit: If you want to watch Italy still not be a nation, you need to read R.J.B. Bosworth's Mussolini's Italy, in which a bunch of nerds, roughnecks, and thugs try to hammer Fascism on top of the heterogeneous hate-pile that is Italy and it doesn't work. Most common punishment under Fascism: internal exile, where you send a dude you don't like to a part of Italy that he doesn't come from, i.e., a foreign country. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 21:49
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Apparently north and south still don't like each other very much. I saw some demonstration about how the filthy southerners are a drain on the booming northern economy or some such about seven or eight years ago when I was on holidays in Venice.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:55
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