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JaucheCharly posted:How exactly do you unload a musket once the powder got wet? Is it easy once you get the paper out? Anyway, you get the bullet and powder (and paper, if it's down there) out with a little worm, just like the worms for cannon but very very small. If the powder has stuck together due to moisture, you'll use that to break it into chunks so you can pour it out. Although a load of powder won't get wet enough to get unusable just from the moisture in the air during a few hours, in my experience.
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Mar 22, 2014 07:08
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I understood that the paper is in there to hold the bullet in place as it isn't a perfect fit as in modern rifles
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Mar 22, 2014 07:27
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JaucheCharly posted:I understood that the paper is in there to hold the bullet in place as it isn't a perfect fit as in modern rifles HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Mar 22, 2014 |
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Mar 22, 2014 07:33
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I was asking about balls, but getting a minie ball out of a rifled barrel that fits tight sounds like a poo poo job.
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Mar 22, 2014 07:40
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JaucheCharly posted:I was asking about balls, but getting a minie ball out of a rifled barrel that fits tight sounds like a poo poo job. I've never had to do that but I imagine it would be. Anything having to do with muzzle loaders is rear end, pure rear end. Edit: I was present when we had to clear a cannon after a bunch of misfires though: you tip the muzzle down as low as it will go and pour water into the vent. The charge will probably slide out, then you worm the wet barrel out and swab it. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Mar 22, 2014 |
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Mar 22, 2014 07:46
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A friend tried to chamber a spent blank 7.62 (you know, the blue ones) in his dad's K98. Trying to get that out without a ramrod was a nightmare.
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Mar 22, 2014 08:02
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JaucheCharly posted:A friend tried to chamber a spent blank 7.62 (you know, the blue ones) in his dad's K98. Trying to get that out without a ramrod was a nightmare.
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Mar 22, 2014 08:19
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I"m at risk of losing steam on battlecruiser posting, so let's get caught up on some more post-Jutland BC designs. As a bonus, we'll look at a good armored cruiser having seen the nadir of the type with the Dupuy de Lome. We're getting closer to French carriers too. I was originally planning to do the WW2 Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, but I just have to make it a double feature (edit: not gonna happen). Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were Prussian generals, military theorists, and reformers who played an active part in the Napoleonic Wars. They had major warships named after them twice, so they weren't nobodies. Both pairs of ships were solid, disciplined, trained combat units. The WW1 Scharnhorst had just won the fleet gunnery competition. They were solid, mature designs. The pair that fought in WW1 were armored cruisers, the WW2 pair were well-thought out battlecruisers. Let's talk about cruising. You go out to where the merchants hips are and either look for them, or for warships looking for them. You try and sink what you find. it's a simple system. Back in the age of sail days they used frigates and smaller vessels for commerce raiding. The Bonhomme Richard was after a British convoy when she fought the Serapis ("I ahve not yet begun to fight !" That's right, the RN was running convoys in the 1770s, the debates about it in 1915 were stupid. Convoys work, put all the targets in one place and protect them. It dramatically increases the chance that raiders will find no ships, and if they do they have to deal with the escorts first. If you run a lot of trade, or imports, or military shipping, you need a lot of escorts. Between the wars, the RN estimated they needed 70 cruisers, most of them for trade protection and the balance for fleet work. The fleet cruisers were intended for scouting, acting as destroyer leaders (the Japanese were big on this as well), and adding punch to torpedo attacks. They were typically small and fast, with room for an admiral and his staff along with as many guns and torpedoes as could be squeezed in. In the RN cruisers would also take on the fleet air defense role. Trade protection cruisers were bigger to allow for extended range and carrying aircraft. Before WW1 trade protection cruisers were generally protected cruisers. These were pretty fast 20-23 knots), pretty well armed (around 6-8 4") pretty lightly armored (1.5-2" curved belt), and pretty cheap. To supplement or attack them you want heavier ships. Protected cruisers grew into light cruisers, they got faster, started to acquire 6" guns, and maybe torpedoes. To properly put a light or protected cruiser in its place, you want an armored cruiser. They had proper armored belts and decks; their armament was arranged like a contemporary predreadnought battleship. The Japanese even used them in the battle line line at Tsushima, to considerably greater effect than by either side at Jutland. If you take that concept and give it a lot of coal, you have a long range vessel suitable for power projection and trade warfare. That brings us to the the armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Capable of over 23 knots, and 5000 nautical miles at 10 knots they were well suited for wide ranging operations. They carried 8 8.2" guns, and 6 5.9" with a maximum belt armor of 6 inches. They could match or overpower anything short of a battlecruiser, and they would do exactly that.   The outbreak of WW1 found the two ACs, along with the rest of von Spee's East Asia Squadron, at Tsingtao in China. Overmatched locally by the HMS Australia and the Japanese BCs that would surely come in on the side of the Entente, von Spee decided to run for home. The long way across the Pacific and around South America and north to home - if they broke through the blockade. At the start of the war Britain started raising troops in the colonies, India and Australia most notably. This meant troop convoys that just had to be protected. Along with that the RN had to worry about protecting wireless transmitting stations, general commerce, and occupying German possessions in the Pacific. All of these tasks took warships; troop convoys and occupying Tsingtao had priority. To keep the RN hopping the commander of the SMS Emden, Korvettenkapitän von Müller, volunteered to stay behind as a commerce raider. He captured 22 merchant ships and sank a Russian light cruiser before being run down by HMAS Sydney.  SMS Emden  SMS Gneisenau So von Spee steamed across the Pacific with the two ACs and the CLs Dresden, Nurenburg, and Leipzig, refueling from British stations that hadn't heard there was a war on yet. In South America they had access to neutral ports and pre-arranged coal purchases. To meet them the RN had a small squadron with the two ACs and a CL. In addition to that they had apair of white elephants; the HMS Otranto, an armed merchant cruiser (aka a freighter with half a dozen 4" guns and an 18 knot maxiumum speed), and the HMS Canopus. The Canopus was an obsolete predreadnought battleship with 2 twin 12" turrets, more than capable of battering the German ACs into pieces - if it could have landed a hit. Admiral Craddock also had two things he didn't want, and didn't get one thing he thought he'd have. What he did have was orders from the admiralty back in London and what would prove a bad example. The orders from the admiralty were to engage von Spee, keep his force concentrated around the Cerberus, attack the German squadron, expect a better ship that never came, preserve his own force... The orders were a mess. Here's how you tell if a history book is being fair on the topic of, say, Churchill's leadership: they reprint all the messages to Craddock, in full. To show how stupid they were. Churchill gets crap for the crazy Baltic plan (which was worth studying) and the Dardanelles (his initial concept might have worked, the bloated command mess that was actually tried never could have for reasons both personal and institutional). He gets not one tenth of what he's due for screwing up the South Atlantic campaign this badly. Craddock, as the man on the scene, thought he had been ordered to engage a superior force, that he had been denied reinforcements, and was still liable to face a tribunal or court martial if he refused to face the enemy. Admiral Craddock had two really poor armored cruisers, the Monmouth and the Cape of Good Hope. he thought he'd have the Defiance, but she was redirected and his orders were changed to imply he should attack anyway. He did, and on November 1st, 1914 he and the crews of both ACs died in stormy weather off of the coast of Chile. They were brave. It was in the finest traditions of the service. He was following his orders as he (or anyone else with a practical command of the English language would have) understood them. But it wasn't the right move, and they weren't the right orders. It gets washed over a lot, ignoring this lesson may be why the Admiralty, sitting in comfortable offices, warm and dry, would order PQ 17 scattered (Adm. Pound probably had a brain tumor for that one, but someone could have said something, even if off the record). King, Nimitz, and Halsey never second guessed the officer in charge on the scene. The Battle of Coronel was a one-sided massacre. Weather is technically neutral, but on this occasion, for technical reasons, it robbed the Royal Navy of most of its firepower. Go back up and look at the illustrations of the German ACs. All the guns are well off the water, right ? Now look at HMS Monmouth...  That's half her 6 inch battery down where and serious waves will make them useless. The Cape of Good Hope was arranged as badly. here's the Defiance.  Not quite as big as the German ships, but as well armed and armored. She was sent elsewhere when she was needed in South American waters. Craddock just had the Canopus as an ace in the hole. But she was far too slow to keep up, so he left her behind to pursue his misbegotten orders. It turns out that the chief engineer of the Canopus was a useless drunk who was under reporting the ship's condition to the captain to keep out of combat. He ended up posted ashore in quiet disgrace. Craddock left his most powerful ship behind, because he thought he was required to attack immediately. And, as said, died uselessly. Running the enemy squadron half out of ammunition is not an accomplishment any admiral worth his salt should be proud of. Coronel, as much as any battle on the West Front, was a classic example of WW1 suicidal bravery and wasted blood. In the aftermath, the British survivors, AMC Otranto, CL GLasgow, and BB Canopus ran for the nearest British territory, the Falkland islands on the opposite coast of South America. There they could refuel, make minor repairs, and replace the drunk in charge of the Canopus' engineering plant. The German squadron was low on ammunition and fuel, and still needed to make its way back to Germany. They could refuel at the Falklands, so off they went.  As poorly as they handled the setup for Coronel, the Admiralty did the right thing in the aftermath. They detached BCs Invincible and Inflexible from the Grand Fleet, a major sacrifice in home fleet strength, and sent them after von Spee.   These were first generation British battlecruisers of the classic form. These were 25.5 knot ships, giving them a 2 knot speed advantage over the German cruisers on paper, and probably by an extra knot given how long the Germans had been in tropical waters. 8 12" and a 4-6" belt made them proof against German gunnery at long range, and capable of killing their opponents. And that's what happened. Coronel and the Falklands form a set in naval history. First one side suffered a catastrophic, one-sided defeat, and then the other suffered the same. von Spee approached the Falklands on the morning of December 8, 1914. He did everything right, sending part of his force in to scout out what was in harbor. He was prepared to just steam in and land armed parties to seize and load coal, but he did it by the book. So he scouted. The report he got back was fatal news, the tripod masts of British capital ships had been spotted. He did the only thing he could do and ran for it. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau stuck together, dueling with the battlecruisers. The light cruisers scattered. Both heavier ships acquitted themselves well, scoring some hits and making bold turns to engage their heavier pursuers. All in vain of course, 4 8.2" can't out shoot 4 12" at long range.   (very simplified)  And that's where the story of the first Scharnhorst and Gneisenau ends. Their successors had busy careers, paying back the British in full for sinking the originals.
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Mar 22, 2014 10:53
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mllaneza posted:Battlecruiser post Really interesting stuff. It's fascinating how quick the technology changed.
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Mar 22, 2014 15:48
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mllaneza posted:BC post
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Mar 22, 2014 15:58
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CoolCab posted:In a similar way to how we say "blah blah blah" to denote someone talking while you aren't (or aren't able to be) listening, Romans used "bar bar bar". So a barbarian is someone who couldn't speak the language. It's Greek, anyway. Hoi Barbaroi.
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Mar 22, 2014 16:34
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Tekopo posted:Don't you mean the Defence rather than the Defiance? Or did I get something wrong here.
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Mar 22, 2014 16:58
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Does anyone know anything about the pirates of the South China Sea in the 1800s and their eventual destruction by the Royal NAvy?
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Mar 22, 2014 17:41
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What's the deal with all the high masts and faux-rigging on those cruisers? Radio masts and guy-wires to support them?
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Mar 22, 2014 19:27
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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PittTheElder posted:What's the deal with all the high masts and faux-rigging on those cruisers? Radio masts and guy-wires to support them? Lookouts and fire directors. The Earth is curved.
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Mar 22, 2014 19:40
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PittTheElder posted:What's the deal with all the high masts and faux-rigging on those cruisers? Radio masts and guy-wires to support them? You'd still need a guy sitting in a really tall place to spot stuff for you before they invented radars or put spotter aircraft on ships.
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Mar 22, 2014 20:47
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Is anyone familiar with the amphibious feint undertaken by the United States during the Gulf War? Was it always planned to be a diversion, or would it have gone forward if things in the western desert didn't go so well?
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Mar 22, 2014 22:31
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brozozo posted:Is anyone familiar with the amphibious feint undertaken by the United States during the Gulf War? Was it always planned to be a diversion, or would it have gone forward if things in the western desert didn't go so well? I'm pretty sure they were never intended to be used, since there were substantial minefields. They did tie down multiple Iraqi divisions though.
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Mar 22, 2014 23:05
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That amphibious feint did have a couple Iowa class Battleships involved so that was pretty cool.
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Mar 22, 2014 23:48
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brozozo posted:Is anyone familiar with the amphibious feint undertaken by the United States during the Gulf War? Was it always planned to be a diversion, or would it have gone forward if things in the western desert didn't go so well? I'm very familiar with it, and will write a bit about it when I get home.
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Mar 23, 2014 05:53
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PittTheElder posted:What's the deal with all the high masts and faux-rigging on those cruisers? Radio masts and guy-wires to support them?  See if you can spot an issue with the mast design of the HMS Dreadnought. What are those diagonal lines along the hull BTW?
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Mar 23, 2014 12:13
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meatbag posted:
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Mar 23, 2014 13:22
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That's where you would rig the torpedo nets. Arguably especially important with Dreadnought and her lack of secondaries.
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Mar 23, 2014 13:32
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She had 3-inch quick firing guns for dealing with enemy torpedo boats, which was plausible in 1906. By the time WWI kicked off torpedoes had advanced enough that she'd have to depend on her screen to keep destroyers away, but then she was obsolescent by then anyway. 8 years can be an eternity during an arms race.
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Mar 23, 2014 14:34
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The Merry Marauder posted:That's where you would rig the torpedo nets. Except the torpedo nets were used when in port only. You don't rig out torpedo nets while steaming.
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Mar 23, 2014 15:05
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Saint Celestine posted:Except the torpedo nets were used when in port only. You don't rig out torpedo nets while steaming. Not so. You used them when anchored at sea, or could proceed underway at a crawl with them streaming. Also, it would be an enormous pain to strike the booms for no reason. You realize they're folded in that picture? Zorak of Michigan posted:She had 3-inch quick firing guns for dealing with enemy torpedo boats, which was plausible in 1906. By the time WWI kicked off torpedoes had advanced enough that she'd have to depend on her screen to keep destroyers away, but then she was obsolescent by then anyway. 8 years can be an eternity during an arms race. 3" was acceptable for the very brief period (certainly over before WWI began) where weak torpedo boats were doctrinally expected to attack separately from the rest of a force. Otherwise, unshielded, unprotected guns would be...difficult to work with the main batteries firing, not to mention hauling shells to the initially absurd (in context) positions of the 12 pounders.
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Mar 23, 2014 18:11
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Did they ever try to make warships along a more modular design that could be refitted more easily?
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Mar 23, 2014 19:31
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Fangz posted:Did they ever try to make warships along a more modular design that could be refitted more easily? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littoral_combat_ship 
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Mar 23, 2014 19:36
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Well that's good that its modular since its entire hull is going to need replacing every other year.
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Mar 23, 2014 20:00
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How can you have a stealthy ship with a not-stealthy helicopter parked on it?
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Mar 23, 2014 20:58
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uPen posted:How can you have a stealthy ship with a not-stealthy helicopter parked on it? They have a pretty generous hangar space for their size. 
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Mar 23, 2014 21:07
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The helicopter is more heavily armed than the ship, anyway.
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Mar 23, 2014 21:36
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Krak des Chevaliers has been damaged in the civil war. I mean I guess that makes sense; just how effective is a thousand year old fortification today? How often does this happen?
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Mar 24, 2014 03:57
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http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2159h6/iama_doolittle_raider_lt_col_dick_cole_i_was/ Doolittle raider did an AMA on reddit. 98 years old and still kicking.
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Mar 24, 2014 04:03
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Koramei posted:Krak des Chevaliers has been damaged in the civil war. I mean I guess that makes sense; just how effective is a thousand year old fortification today? How often does this happen? Not effective at all in a real modern battle; WWI style artillery would blast it to poo poo overnight. As a bunch of guys with light arms hiding from other guys with light arms and mortars? Probably pretty great.
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Mar 24, 2014 04:28
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PittTheElder posted:Not effective at all in a real modern battle; WWI style artillery would blast it to poo poo overnight. As a bunch of guys with light arms hiding from other guys with light arms and mortars? Probably pretty great.
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Mar 24, 2014 05:02
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Koramei posted:Krak des Chevaliers has been damaged in the civil war. I mean I guess that makes sense; just how effective is a thousand year old fortification today? How often does this happen? If it's modern (post 1490s) and got the right angles and a good glacis, pretty drat. However, Krak des Chevaliers is not a modern fortress.
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Mar 24, 2014 05:27
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WEEDLORDBONERHEGEL posted:If it's modern (post 1490s) and got the right angles and a good glacis, pretty drat. However, Krak des Chevaliers is not a modern fortress. It looks like it's got that high but comparatively thin walls build that's been kinda obsolete since 1453. Course I can't say for certain given the pictures in the article.
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Mar 24, 2014 06:06
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Frostwerks posted:It looks like it's got that high but comparatively thin walls build that's been kinda obsolete since 1453. Course I can't say for certain given the pictures in the article.
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Mar 24, 2014 06:11
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Fangz posted:Did they ever try to make warships along a more modular design that could be refitted more easily? The Danes have put StanFlex modules on pretty much all of their ships. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StanFlex
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Mar 24, 2014 07:07
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