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Davincie posted:This must be one of the ugliest things I've seen, give it a scope and it could be a Call of Duty weapon.
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Dec 31, 2013 19:28
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SeanBeansShako posted:For London, I strongly suggest the Imperial War Museum. Azathoth posted:As someone who knows nothing about firearms, could someone please explain to me in what circumstances such attachments would end up being used? It looks to me like they tried to turn a pistol into a heavier weapon, but I don't understand why someone would carry around all those attachments instead of just carrying a second heavier weapon entirely. Rent-A-Cop fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Dec 31, 2013 |
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Dec 31, 2013 19:35
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Azathoth posted:As someone who knows nothing about firearms, could someone please explain to me in what circumstances such attachments would end up being used? It looks to me like they tried to turn a pistol into a heavier weapon, but I don't understand why someone would carry around all those attachments instead of just carrying a second heavier weapon entirely. If you're an infantryman, you'd be carrying around a proper weapon to begin with, but if you were an artilleryman, or a tank crewman, or doing something like that, odds are that your big and heavy gun (if you were ever issued one) would be leaning against the side of a trench or in your tank that is currently on fire (no one is going to waste time grabbing a full sized SMG when climbing out of a burning tank) when the time came to use it. Therefore, it's better to turn a pistol into something that can act as an SMG for a short period of time until immediate danger passes. However, you're right, the attachments are still pretty bulky, the result is not particularly accurate or reliable, and when you actually have to use one of these things, odds are you won't have time to strap all that extra crap to it before shooting. People in the above category preferred SMGs and carbines with folding stocks to this monstrosity, anyway.
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Dec 31, 2013 20:14
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SeanBeansShako posted:For London, I strongly suggest the Imperial War Museum. This is at the top of my must see museum list. Waroduce posted:In Germany, I want to see Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin Wall, the Reichstag and Dachau. Any WW2 or Cold War museums/locations of significance/missile silos/bunkers/aviation graveyards/ whatever that are near those two cities would be great, since this portion of the trip is primarily mine to craft. For Berlin: The lines for the reichstag can be very long so research the best time to get there. There is also a nice memorial to the victims of national socialism nearby and a small memorial outside the reichstag itself to politicians killed by the nazis. After the reichstag the soviet WW2 memorial is a short walk away, inside the tiergarten though the victory column is a bit of a walk from there. The German History museum is also fantastic and a must see. I know your schedule is very tight but if you happen to be in France for the 29tth or 30th of June OR the 19th or 20th of July the French tank museum in samaur is having a field day where they drive a bunch of tanks around.
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Dec 31, 2013 20:46
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Rent-A-Cop posted:The whole idea of issuing subguns sort of fell out of favor with the introduction of assault rifles and their carbine variants. Ensign Expendable posted:People in the above category preferred SMGs and carbines with folding stocks to this monstrosity, anyway. Well they can do lots of stuff with tiny rifle calibers in machine pistols these days! 
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Dec 31, 2013 20:58
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Waroduce posted:My girlfriend and I are going to be traveling Europe this summer, and I'm a huge milhistory/foreign policy reader. I was International Relations in undergrad and have been an avid reader in that vein all of my life. I was hoping this thread could point me in the direction of some cool things to see while we are traveling. Our itinerary is roughly - We are doing 4 days in Germany (2 Munich/2 Berlin), a night in Amsterdam You cannot come to Europe and skip cities like Prague, Vienna, Budapest or Salzburg. There's lots to see in Vienna. 1. Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (The special exhibition is about WWI atm) 2. Höfische Jagd & Rüstkammer 3. Flak Towers 4. Roman Museum 5. Kunsthistorisches Museum 6. Ethnological Museum 7. Loads of churches 8. Stuff that I forgot (Like the Albertina Art Museum) 9. Castles in the vicinity.
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Dec 31, 2013 21:10
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, a day in Paris, and finishing in London. I'm primarily interested in WW2 and Cold War monuments/locations/whatever, however I enjoy every post in this thread so if someone knows some cool stuff from any point in history, I would take it under consideration. 
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Libluini posted:If you take archaeological evidence instead of just recorded history, it even extends far beyond 1457 BC. Somewhere between 2191 BC until 2112 BC saw heavy fighting in Mesopotamien: First the southern part of the collapsing early Akkadian empire was overrun by a tribe called the Gutians, then the citystates of Mesopotamia fought them off again. There are records of wars from about 2500 or so; even if they are mixed up with myth and legend. Gilgamesh, for example, certainly fought the other Sumerian city states and the Elamites, even if he didn't really fight dragons and catoblepas. After him, in the 2400s we start seeing other "praise poems" by kings boasting of their accomplishments. That plus archaeological evidence has shown that the Sumerian states fought each other for hegemony and tribute; for a while Eridu was top dog, then Uruk, then Lagash, and finally Umma before Sargon sweeps down and defeats them all, forming the short-lived Akkadian empire in about 2100. If I recall, the best records come from Lagash, which has its kings boasting of sacking Umma, and then building a momument overlooking the city to rub it in. Then, of course, about 200 years later, you have the king of Lagash complaining that Umma sacked his city, and tore down the monuments and plundered the temples. Unfortunately, the records aren't terribly clear on where the battles were fought, what tactics were used, how the sieges went down, which is why people tend to think of Megiddo and Kadesh as the earliest battles known.
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Dec 31, 2013 21:13
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InspectorBloor posted:You cannot come to Europe and skip cities like Prague, If you make a stop in Prague, DON't visit the very heavily advertised Museum of Communism - it's a tourist trap set up by an American entrepreneur who created it to increase traffic to his nearby restaurants.
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Dec 31, 2013 21:13
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Koesj posted:Well they can do lots of stuff with tiny rifle calibers in machine pistols these days!
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Dec 31, 2013 21:15
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steinrokkan posted:If you make a stop in Prague, DON't visit the very heavily advertised Museum of Communism - it's a tourist trap set up by an American entrepreneur who created it to increase traffic to his nearby restaurants. Eh its not that bad of a tourist trap really. They have quite a collection of soviet and Czechoslovak SSR memorabilia on display. Also seconding Bloor's suggestion of Vienna and Salzburg they are both fantastic.
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Dec 31, 2013 21:31
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sullat posted:There are records of wars from about 2500 or so; even if they are mixed up with myth and legend. Gilgamesh, for example, certainly fought the other Sumerian city states and the Elamites, even if he didn't really fight dragons and catoblepas. After him, in the 2400s we start seeing other "praise poems" by kings boasting of their accomplishments. That plus archaeological evidence has shown that the Sumerian states fought each other for hegemony and tribute; for a while Eridu was top dog, then Uruk, then Lagash, and finally Umma before Sargon sweeps down and defeats them all, forming the short-lived Akkadian empire in about 2100. Yeah, I kind of destroyed my own argument there, since I mentioned how the Sumerians had lists for everything, their wars didn't really go "unrecorded", for truly unrecorded wars we would have to go farther back, but I have a few weeks of reading to do until I understand the matter good enough to talk about it. About old battles, a battle rather well-known only for a few years now was the siege I mentioned in my post. Hopefully I can find the article again, but since I forgot the trading city Ur conquered and Google is rather nasty if you search for two-letter words like "Ur", welp. That city was apparently quite a surprise because it was thought ancient cities developed mostly around agriculture, so finding a city of the 3rd millenium before common era who entirely developed around trade and manufacturing was quite strange. Also the archaeologists found evidence that the city entered a new golden age under Ur after its conquest. So the siege had a happy end, in a way.
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Dec 31, 2013 21:56
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It's about 2.5 hours outside london, but if you can go the Tank Museum is one of my dreams to visit.
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Dec 31, 2013 22:02
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Libluini posted:Yeah, I kind of destroyed my own argument there, since I mentioned how the Sumerians had lists for everything, their wars didn't really go "unrecorded", for truly unrecorded wars we would have to go farther back, but I have a few weeks of reading to do until I understand the matter good enough to talk about it. Was the city Mari by any chance? They were a prosperous trade center located on the Euphrates right about where the logical overland routes to the Levant would be. As such, they were pipular raiding targets, but would also go out and look for payback.
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Dec 31, 2013 22:28
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sullat posted:Was the city Mari by any chance? They were a prosperous trade center located on the Euphrates right about where the logical overland routes to the Levant would be. As such, they were pipular raiding targets, but would also go out and look for payback. Uh, no. I still remember the name started with a "H". Also the siege saw the heavy use of some fancy Ur-siege weapon. Some sort of spherical ceramic device, hurtled against the city using catapults. The archaeologists found them everywhere in the ruins of that city, apparently they smashed even into buildings from above and the citizens just left them lying around for some reason. That's everything I remember now, if that helps. Edit: I remembered another tidbit from the article: The city was somewhere close to or in a mountaineous region. There was no river or even agricultural usable plains anywhere close. The city only survived on trade. Libluini fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Dec 31, 2013 |
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Dec 31, 2013 22:44
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Something more recent I'm curious about. How did submarine warfare go back in WWII? Don't seem to hear much about it, other than a few hijinks the Japanese pulled.
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Dec 31, 2013 22:52
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veekie posted:Something more recent I'm curious about. How did submarine warfare go back in WWII? Don't seem to hear much about it, other than a few hijinks the Japanese pulled. Anything specific? One common thing about WWII subs that general populace consistently gets wrong is that they were in fact surface vessels with a capacity to become temporarily submerged, not the permanently hidden monsters of the Cold War. Other than that, there's a lot of possible topics pertaining to each national branch.
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Dec 31, 2013 22:59
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steinrokkan posted:Anything specific? One common thing about WWII subs that general populace consistently gets wrong is that they were in fact surface vessels with a capacity to become temporarily submerged, not the permanently hidden monsters of the Cold War. Other than that, there's a lot of possible topics pertaining to each national branch. Even more fascinating in my mind is that there was a notable submarine presence in WWI as well. Obviously the technology at the time was even more restrictive in its ability to stay submerged than in WWII as well. I've always had the impression that in WWI at least their psychological impact was much greater than their material impact but I don't have anything to back that up. If I lived in a time and place where airplanes have only existed for 10ish years, most people in rural America don't have electricity, and the enemy is sinking your ships with ships that go under loving water I'd be terrified. Can you talk about the changes to submarine tech, doctine, and usage between the two wars? Also, Das Boot and its kickin rad 80's music should be required viewing for someone interested in WWII submarine warfare.
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Dec 31, 2013 23:21
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I'm interested in this as well. Was there a submarine presence at Jutland? How was it even possible to have a functional diesel submarine when even land vehicles were hilariously unreliable and lovely (during WW1 I mean)? And were there any countermeasures put into place to fight subs?
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Dec 31, 2013 23:23
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steinrokkan posted:Anything specific? One common thing about WWII subs that general populace consistently gets wrong is that they were in fact surface vessels with a capacity to become temporarily submerged, not the permanently hidden monsters of the Cold War. Other than that, there's a lot of possible topics pertaining to each national branch. Like what kind of operations were they engaged in, and their role in the combined naval conflict. What sort of tactics did they use?
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Dec 31, 2013 23:32
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Libluini posted:Yeah, I kind of destroyed my own argument there, since I mentioned how the Sumerians had lists for everything, their wars didn't really go "unrecorded", for truly unrecorded wars we would have to go farther back, but I have a few weeks of reading to do until I understand the matter good enough to talk about it. Could it be Hamazi? It's mentioned as being conquered in the "Stele of the Vultures", which puts it as being conquered in that time-frame. The wikipedia article (I know) says that it's thought to have been in the Zagros mountains, which incidentally puts it in the way of the Gutians as well, but doesn't mention it as being a major trade hub and I'm not nearly knowledgeable enough to make an argument for it. If you can find that article I would be interested in reading it, but googling it gets me swamped with some fantasy rpg and stuff on the Siege of Homs.
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Dec 31, 2013 23:37
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Slavvy posted:I'm interested in this as well. Was there a submarine presence at Jutland? How was it even possible to have a functional diesel submarine when even land vehicles were hilariously unreliable and lovely (during WW1 I mean)? And were there any countermeasures put into place to fight subs? As it happens, part of the plan for Jutland was that before the Grand Fleet got to the Germans, they would have traveled over a pre-placed submarine line and were supposed to get some dreadnoughts sunk, evening the odds before the real battle. Unluckily, the German fleet was forced by weather to leave port later than was planned and the submarines were within a day of being forced to return to Germany to resupply, and managed to hit precisely 0 British ships.
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Dec 31, 2013 23:40
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DerLeo posted:As it happens, part of the plan for Jutland was that before the Grand Fleet got to the Germans, they would have traveled over a pre-placed submarine line and were supposed to get some dreadnoughts sunk, evening the odds before the real battle. Unluckily, the German fleet was forced by weather to leave port later than was planned and the submarines were within a day of being forced to return to Germany to resupply, and managed to hit precisely 0 British ships. Sorta the reverse happened before Midway - IIRC the Japanese subs got into position right after the American carriers had sailed by.
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Jan 1, 2014 00:40
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veekie posted:Something more recent I'm curious about. How did submarine warfare go back in WWII? Don't seem to hear much about it, other than a few hijinks the Japanese pulled. Well, there was that whole Battle of the Atlantic thing.
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Jan 1, 2014 01:12
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Dopilsya posted:Could it be Hamazi? It's mentioned as being conquered in the "Stele of the Vultures", which puts it as being conquered in that time-frame. The wikipedia article (I know) says that it's thought to have been in the Zagros mountains, which incidentally puts it in the way of the Gutians as well, but doesn't mention it as being a major trade hub and I'm not nearly knowledgeable enough to make an argument for it. If you can find that article I would be interested in reading it, but googling it gets me swamped with some fantasy rpg and stuff on the Siege of Homs. Found it, it was in the German magazine/newspaper Zeit! The city was called Hamoukar and excavation has been ongoing since 2003. It's ruins are near the outskirts of Akaba, a city in Jordan. (Also at the coast of the Red Sea, so I have no idea why I thought the city would be in the mountains.)
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Jan 1, 2014 01:19
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Slavvy posted:I'm interested in this as well. Was there a submarine presence at Jutland? How was it even possible to have a functional diesel submarine when even land vehicles were hilariously unreliable and lovely (during WW1 I mean)? And were there any countermeasures put into place to fight subs? Consider the difference between, say, a diesel engine in a tractor and a diesel engine the same size, paired with another, in something the size of a tour bus. It's easier to keep a primitive engine in working order if you can walk around it.
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Jan 1, 2014 02:56
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Waroduce posted:also I know this isn't the thread for it but if Hegel or anyone else has any info on hostels or little tips I'd appreciate them. Edit: I found the medieval and early modern stuff (which was all I looked at) in the German Historical Museum somewhat basic, but the little cannon park in the glassed-in courtyard is adorable--and they have a leather gun, which was  . When I tried to go to the Museum of DDR History there was a massive line, and on the same day the Pergamon Museum had a line stretching around the courtyard--turns out once it's full they only let 15 people in at a time and the dude I talked to had been waiting there for two hours. Don't try to go to either one on a weekend, I guess. The Berlin Hauptbahnhof sinage WILL confuse you, even if you speak German. In Berlin, try to go to ruins that have been converted into party spots, East Berlin is like Shadowrun in places. German weed is mediocre at best. Munich is one of the two most expensive cities in Germany. Back in the US suddenly for a family emergency, but I brought 474 pages of scanned documents with me. 
HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jan 1, 2014 |
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Jan 1, 2014 05:18
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The two primary weapons of the submarine were always the deck gun and the torpedo in both World Wars. Evolution in technology mostly came in the form of faster subs, more endurance/range, and more destructive/accurate torpedoes. In World War I, the submarine was still a very new weapon - its modern incarnation was actually invented by an American, and the war started with Britain and France having more and more modern subs than Germany. It's initial use was as scouts or screens for capital ships, and to attack enemy capital ships from stealth. Sinking a battleship or a cruiser without a major engagement was a pretty plum deal. The Royal Navy under Admiral Jellicoe was very well aware of the threat posed by subs as a means for Germany to sink some RN battleships without a fight and so erode at the margin of advantage in dreadnoughts that they had. This fear was taken very seriously indeed when on Sep 22, 1914, three old RN cruisers, the Aboukir, the Hogue and the Cressy, were all sunk by a single U-Boat, U-9, commanded by Kapitanleutnant Otto Weddigen. These three cruisers were all from the turn of the century and were being called the "live-bait squadron" even before they were torpedoed. In retrospect, the cruisers were not zigzagging in violation of orders to do so and further slowed and stopped to help their squadron-mates after the first torpedoing of the Aboukir, which they believed that had 'only' hit a mine. For his accomplishment, Weddigen was awarded Iron Cross and would have a Kriegsmarine U-Boat flotilla named after him in WWII. He would later die on Mar 18 1915 while trying to torpedo the HMS Neptune - he would not notice the HMS Dreadnought running over his boat, ramming and sinking it while setting up a torpedo attack. The economic aspect of submarines sinking merchant ships was not considered for quite a while, primarily due to 'prize rules' - if one were attack merchant shipping, the expectation was that one would declare his presence to the merchant ship, order its surrender, take off its crew, put them in lifeboats, send them off towards the nearest point of land and only then sink the abandoned merchant. These rules are fairly easy to abide by when you're a large sailing ship, or a modern cruiser or battleship, but for a submarine, it just was not feasible. The sub would have to leave itself exposed for several hours while it went through all the steps for humane treatment of the crew, and the relative size of a sub compared to a merchant might even make such efforts impossible: Why surrender to a 600 ton hunk of metal when your cargo liner is several times larger? The first round of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare began on Feb 1915, when the Kaiserliche Marine issued orders to its U-boats to attack merchant shipping without warning. The Germany Navy was actually not all that well-prepared for this, as many of its boats were not up-to-date models and so patrols set up to intercept ships coming in to England was very porous. Nevertheless, the subs did sink so many more ships when they did not have to abide to prize rules and were free to shoot torpedoes without prior warning, a luxury that previously was only afforded against warships or known troop transports. It all came to a stop just 4 months later, May 1915, when U-20 sank the RMS Lusitania. The sinking cost the lives of 128 American citizens, and the possibility of drawing the US into the war was enough to get the German Navy to back down and cancel the campaign. It bears mentioning at this point that the prosecution of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare was a debate that raged on through the German high command since shortly after the beginning of the war. Proponents of the idea argued that it was the only way to strike back at Britain for their naval blockade of Germany, while its detractors cited the navy's unpreparedness to conduct a full campaign and the fear of drawing the ire of the US. For the moment, the anti-sub faction won, with one of the big factors being General von Falkenhayn promising victory in the Western Front through his upcoming Verdun campaign, obviating the need for a diplomatically risky submarine policy. As it turned out, Verdun became a grinding battle of attrition that did not result in a decisive victory and von Falkenhayn was replaced by Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff in Aug 1916. Since the cancellation of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare, U-boats had been relegated to their early-war role of naval support for fleet combat actions - the aforementioned net of U-boats at Jutland designed to sink RN battleships on their way to a decisive battle being the most notable example of this period. This limited policy did not work at Jutland nor at other junctions, but in the meantime the submarine arm of the Kaiserliche Marine had been expanding rapidly - more U-boats, better models. And now, with von Falkenhayn out, the stage was set for the German high command to allow for the reintroduction of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare - von Hindenburg and Ludendorff were willing to use any means at their disposal to win the war, and proponents of the campaign from the navy had drawn up statistics saying that if the U-boats could sink 600,000 tons of merchant shipping per month, Britain would collapse within 6 months. Those standing against a renewed anti-shipping campaign knew that torpedoing merchants so aggressively would definitely draw the US into the war this time, but their objections were overruled by promises that the war would be over by then, that the US would not react in time, that the US would not be able to muster an army large enough to matter, and that even if they did join the war and muster an army the U-boats would prevent them from shipping troops across the Atlantic anyway. Unrestricted Submarine Warfare finally resumed on Feb 1917 after months of preparations and deliberations following von Falkenhayn's dismissal. In Feb 1917, the U-boats sank 400k tons of shipping. In March 1917, 500k tons; in April 1917, 600k tons. By this time however the US had already joined the war, bolstered the Royal Navy by putting American destroyer escorts at the RN's disposal, and the RN itself started implementing the convoy system. At this point I would like to address the question of why it took the RN so long to implement the convoy system. The main reasons come down to: 1. A belief that making groups of ships sail together would simply allow a U-boat to sink more in a single sitting - this was flat-out false - the RN had been effectively running "convoys" of dreadnought battleships escorted by destroyers for years now without major losses to submarines, and even merchant shipping convoys were in effect in the form of a coal cargo route between England and Norway, and ships running that particular route did not suffer heavy losses from submarines 2. A lack of escorts - the warship arm of the RN guarded its battleships jealously and allotted the majority of its destroyers to guarding them. Therefore, it lacked enough destroyers to serve as escorts for merchant ships themselves. This was a fairly valid reason and was offset by the addition of American escorts and an eventual slackening of allocation for the warship fleet once it became clear that the U-boats were a terrible threat to Britain 3. A lack of merchant discipline and technology - prior to official implementation of the convoy system, the Royal Navy invited groups of merchant captains to a conference to ask them about the feasibility of running in a convoy. The overall feeling was that it would either be very difficult if not outright impossible. Ships those days were still coal-fired, which made it difficult to produce consistent amounts of power from the engines, not withstanding that most merchant ships lacked engine telegraphs (read: throttles) which provided enough fine control to allow them to maintain formation. This was eventually remedied by closer coordination with RN officers and having the ships run with destroyer escorts. In the event, simply forcing the captains to man up and do it also worked. As far as methods to attack or destroy U-boats, several approaches were taken: The most basic was simply turning the ship towards the U-boat and trying to ram it, although this would imply having already detected the U-boat in the first place. Depth charges and basic hydrophones (but not active sonar/ASDIC) was also invented and implemented in the latter half of the war, as was aerial patrols (not great considering limits on aeroplane technology) and the famous Q-Ships: merchant ships requipped with guns that would wait until they were attacked only to fight back as a wolf in sheep's clothing. Ultimately though, none of these measures were especially successful in destroying large numbers of U-boats, and the turning of the tide was more in the form of simply reducing losses dramatically via convoys rather than any sort of effective counter-measure. After the implementation of convoying to Atlantic merchants, shipping losses dropped dramatically - and just in time too: The US Navy's liaison to the RN learned that in April 1917, Britain was down to about 3 weeks' worth of foodstuffs and other critical supplies. The Germans came close, but just not close enough - tonnage losses never hit the marks set by the German high command after April 1917, and by Jan 1918 losses were down to just 170k tons. The U-boat fleet never managed to strangle Britain as they had promised, the High Seas Fleet was inadvertently scuttled in Scapa Flow while the post-armistice peace negotiations were still on-going, the Treaty of Versailles imposed strict limits on the size of the new Kriegsmarine, and the stage was set for a new submarine campaign just 21 years later. EDIT: I acknowledge that the original question was with regards to WWII submarines, but I felt that it needed to be put in the correct context by going back to the first Unrestricted Submarine Warfare campaign. I can talk about WWII U-boats in a separate post. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Jan 3, 2014 |
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Jan 1, 2014 05:36
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a travelling HEGEL posted:Edit: I found the medieval and early modern stuff (which was all I looked at) in the German Historical Museum somewhat basic, but the little cannon park in the glassed-in courtyard is adorable--and they have a leather gun, which was If you ever go back the Roman section is wonderfully interesting and the 20th century section is where the museum seemed to shine to me at least.
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Jan 1, 2014 05:52
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Raskolnikov38 posted:If you ever go back the Roman section is wonderfully interesting and the 20th century section is where the museum seemed to shine to me at least.
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Jan 1, 2014 05:55
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gradenko_2000 posted:
Whoa. Did you have that already typed up in some form or did you make that special for us? Either way, very interesting. Are there any sources out there with technical specs of submarine from that era and also WWII? It'd be interesting to directly compare things like range, size, complement, armament, etc. across the years.
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Jan 1, 2014 06:00
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gradenko_2000 posted:A great post. Are there any good books on the WWI submarine war, or the general role of submarines in various navies during that time period?
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Jan 1, 2014 06:18
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Why were the US torpedoes so loving awful in WWII?
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Jan 1, 2014 06:24
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Why were the US torpedoes so loving awful in WWII? Because we were too cheap to properly test the design we went into the war with. No I'm not joking, that's literally it. The torpedoes were expensive so they never tested them and just assumed it was all the captain's fault when they didn't work. Enough finally complained of hearing duds bounce off hulls that they finally tested them and found the fuse didn't work.
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Jan 1, 2014 06:26
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oXDemosthenesXo posted:Whoa. Did you have that already typed up in some form or did you make that special for us? I just typed that up in an hour or so, but the basic outline had been clunking around in my head for months. As for technical specs, this is going to come from googling, but: U-9, the sub that sank 3 aging RN cruisers on Sep 22 1914: Class - Type U-9 Launched - Feb 22 1910 Displacement - 493 tons Length - 57m Speed - 14.2 knots surfaced, 8.1 knots submerged Best range - 3 250 nautical miles at 9 knots Test depth - 50m Complement - 4 officers, 25 men Weapons - 4x 45cm torpedo tubes (2 bow, 2 stern) with 6 torpedoes carried, and a 50mm deck gun U-35, the most successful U-boat of WWI, with 538k tons sunk: Class - Type U-31 Launched - Apr 18 1914 Displacement - 685 tons Length - 64.7m Speed - 16.4 knots surfaced, 9.7 knots submerged Best range - 8 790 nautical miles at 8 knots (note the dramatic increase, late war KM U-boats could reach the Eastern Seaboard of the US) Test depth - 50m Complement - 4 officers, 31 men Weapons - 4x 50cm torpedo tubes (2 bow, 2 stern) with 6 torpedoes carried, and a 88mm deck gun Type VIIC, the standard U-boat of the Kriegsmarine during WWII Displacement - 769 tons Length - 67.1m Speed - 17.7 knots surfaced, 7.6 knots submerged Best range - 8 500 nautical miles at 10 knots Test depth - 230m Complement - 44-52 men total Weapons - 5x 53.3cm torpedo tubes (4 bow, 1 stern) with 14 torpedoes carried, and a 88mm deck gun As a final point of comparison, the Gato-class submarine, which formed the majority of the USN submarine fleet during WWII (in the Pacific) Displacement - 1 525 tons Length - 95m Speed - 21 knots surfaced, 9 knots submerged Best range - 11 000 nautical miles at 10 knots Test depth - 90m Complement - 6 officers, 54 men Weapons - 10x 53.3cm torpedo tubes (6 bow, 4 stern) with 24 torpedoes carried, and a 76mm deck gun uPen posted:Are there any good books on the WWI submarine war, or the general role of submarines in various navies during that time period? Most of this came from Castles of Steel. Despite the name, Robert Massie spends a lot of time discussing the U-boat war as well, especially since after Jutland there wasn't all that much to discuss with regards to surface actions anyway. Shimrra Jamaane posted:Why were the US torpedoes so loving awful in WWII? I've written many words about American torpedoes. Reposting them there so they don't get lost to archives: quote:One of the primary problems* with US torpedoes was that test shots were usually filled with cement or other inert material, which meant that war shots with explosives in them were much heavier. quote:The gyroscope thing is actually a two-stage series of mishaps:
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Jan 1, 2014 06:50
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Why were the US torpedoes so loving awful in WWII? Because the same single government agency, the Newport Torpedo Station, was by act of Congress the entity in charge of designing them, building them, and testing them. And the latter pretty much never happened. Raskolnikov38 posted:The torpedoes were expensive so they never tested them and just assumed it was all the captain's fault when they didn't work. Enough finally complained of hearing duds bounce off hulls that they finally tested them and found the fuse didn't work. It wasn't just the fuse. There were a bunch of problems and each problem was masked by others. The first problem was that they ran too deep. Tests that were done involved a dummy concrete warhead, which was lighter than the actual live warhead. And eventual development replaced the original-design warhead with an even heavier one. So they'd under-run the target and the magnetic detonator just wouldn't sense it and blow the thing up. The Bureau of Ordnance eventually realized this and in the meantime the sub captains started setting them up to run at zero depth, which makes them easier to spot and avoid but at least they'd get close enough for the magnetic detonators to react. So once that change was made, they started getting more hits, which revealed the second problem: now the magnetic detonator was revealed to suck and torpedoes would start going off too early. BuOrd refused to believe this expensive fancy-rear end magnetic detonator could possibly be flawed, and one of the inspectors actually tampered with a test article in order to shift blame away from the design and towards the crews, so submarine captains started deactivating the magnetic detonators. Once that was done, it was discovered that the contact fuse also sucked, it was so massive and had so much inertia that when a torpedo ran straight into the side of the target, the kind of hit crews were trained to aim for, the elements in the fuse would bend and jam and not actually set the torpedo off. Eventually those fuse components were redesigned to be lighter. By the end of the war it was a reasonably reliable weapon but if it had been that way in the first place, *man*. One sub would have crippled or sunk three Japanese carriers in 1943, but the 7 "hits" he achieved were all ones set off too early by the faulty magnetic detonators. Good reading on the problems: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/Admin-Hist/BuOrd/BuOrd-6.html Phanatic fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Jan 1, 2014 |
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Jan 1, 2014 10:01
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I find that summary of German submarine warfare to be automatically bullshit, because you barely mention the role of Q-ships. These were disguised merchant ships that would blow the gently caress out of German submarines that had surfaced and allowed vessels time to discharge their crew into lifeboats in accordance with the laws of war. They are a great example of how the British refused to play good cricket in the North Atlantic when the drat Germans were doing their best to follow the laws of war. Not mentioning them in a history of sub warfare during WWI is like not mentioning the Laconia Incident in a history of sub warfare during WWII. It's an automatic indication that you are approaching the subject from one single point of view, a completely bullshit one.
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Jan 1, 2014 11:37
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Did the Q-ships actually sink or damage enough subs to make an impact on the German anti-shipping campaign? I can only find a handful of merchants that were converted and it doesn't seem like just a few ships converted to killers that are only effective when not using the convoy system and are only really effective vs submarines that declare themselves before launching torpedoes would have much effect. Even if they're loaded with cork or whatever to make them resistant to the first torpedo, I have a hard time imagining a destroyer in WW2 conducting an effective surface action vs a sub after taking a torpedo, let alone a converted merchant in WW1 pulling it off. e: Looking at WW1 Q-Boats they managed to sink 14 submarines for 27 Q-Boats (according to wikipedia) which is a pretty horrific loss rate for a weapon that's designed to deal with submarines and only submarines. uPen fucked around with this message at 12:09 on Jan 1, 2014 |
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Jan 1, 2014 12:00
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That's totally my mistake and appreciated feedback for you to point it out. I omitted it in the running outline I was keeping in my head and so just threw it in there at the last minute without really giving it its proper due. The Q-Ships didn't sink a lot of U-boats (and I daresay nothing was especially effective at sinking U-boats in WWI), but they did represent a significant morale-boosting effort in a war where morale and public perception was as important as anything else, and some Q-Ship engagements were deemed important and heroic enough to merit Victoria Crosses and other such recognition (and in fact my primary source does spend some chapters talking about Q-ships specifically). Another related tactic was the practice of having an RN submarine in tow, to torpedo the U-boat after it had surfaced and stopped the "merchant" I of course have no claim at all to be authoritative, and I acknowledge that my write-up does and will have flaws.
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Jan 1, 2014 14:39
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Waroduce posted:London, I'd like to see Downing Street, and Shakespeare stuff, but if anyone has any other recommendations (from any time not just WW2/CW) I'd love to hear them. I'd strongly suggest the National Army Museum in Chelsea while you're there - its a excellent history of the British Army, as well as the recent (current) operations. The Royal Hospital Chelsea is next to it as well which is a nice place to have a walk around. Else, in Whitehall theres the Household Cavalry Museum at Horse Guards, the Guards Museum at Wellington Barracks and the Churchill War Bunker behind Downing Street (ish). I wouldn't recommend the latter however as when it boils down to it they're just underground offices and its fairly pricey to get in. If you can get out of London, I strongly suggest the Tank Museum at Bovington, the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovil and really the big one, the Historic Dockyard at Portsmouth and HMS Victory - all are excellent and very big.
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Jan 1, 2014 17:23
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cheerfullydrab posted:I find that summary of German submarine warfare to be automatically bullshit, because you barely mention the role of Q-ships. These were disguised merchant ships that would blow the gently caress out of German submarines that had surfaced and allowed vessels time to discharge their crew into lifeboats in accordance with the laws of war. They are a great example of how the British refused to play good cricket in the North Atlantic when the drat Germans were doing their best to follow the laws of war. Not mentioning them in a history of sub warfare during WWI is like not mentioning the Laconia Incident in a history of sub warfare during WWII. It's an automatic indication that you are approaching the subject from one single point of view, a completely bullshit one. What the hell? Everything he said was absolutely correct and there wasn't a hint of bias. Why are you throwing an e-tantrum? In related news I absolutely cannot imagine how awful and frustrating and horrifying it would have been to repeatedly fire dud torpedoes. You're in a steel tube with a couple dozen other dudes with no showers and bad food for weeks at a time, you do well enough to crawl your tube into an attack position against something, you do all the calculations right to deliver your ordnance, you think you're about to strike a blow for Uncle Sam, and then THUNK. You didn't sink anything, any escorts in the area are now hunting for you, and you just lost confidence in the primary weapon that your military profession is designed to employ. Gross.
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Jan 2, 2014 02:50
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