AIRPOWER/Cold War - Its literally the first two lines of their hymn

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Snowdens Secret: Dec 29, 2008; Someone got you a obnoxiously racist av.

Haven't seen this here before: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/313feb4eab9a

quote:

According to documents in the archives of former Communist Czechoslovakia, Czech and Soviet forces were supposed to take the southern German city of Regensburg on the first day of the offensive, known in military parlance as �D+1.�

They would then vault over the Rhine in less than a week, and reach the French city of Besancon�about 150 miles northeast of Lyon�by D+8, before pushing on to Lyon itself.

The plan called for the Czech First and Fourth Armies to strike southwest from Czechoslovakia into West Germany, in conjunction with the Soviet Eighth Guards Army on their northern flank and the Hungarians to the south. Airborne troops would seize crossings over the Neckar and Rhine Rivers.
...
To meet their deadline, the East Bloc armies would have needed to double this rate of advance to some 70 miles per day, all while fighting well-trained defenders armed with advanced weapons.

It�s a military axiom that an attacker should have a three-to-one superiority over a defender in order to succeed, but Warsaw Pact planners assumed they would enjoy only parity or slight numerical superiority versus NATO in troops, tanks, mobile artillery and aircraft.

So how exactly were those tank crews supposed to reach those charming French cafes?

The answer lay in atomic explosions that would sprout from German and French soil like mushrooms after spring rain. The 1964 war plan describes the nuclear deluge that Moscow hoped would blast a path to victory.

�Altogether the operation will require the use of 131 nuclear missiles and nuclear bombs; specifically 96 missiles and 35 nuclear bombs,� the plan states. �The first nuclear strike will use 41 missiles and nuclear bombs. The immediate task will require using 29 missiles and nuclear bombs. The subsequent task could use 49 missiles and nuclear bombs. Twelve missiles and nuclear bombs should remain in the reserve of the front.�

# ? Mar 28, 2014 17:56

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# ? May 22, 2024 17:47

AlexanderCA: Jul 21, 2010; by Cyrano4747

I'm no fan of the "behind the dikes" mentality but I wouldn't exactly equate Mark Rutte to a world leader.

# ? Mar 28, 2014 17:56

Marshal Prolapse: Jun 23, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Snowdens Secret posted:

Haven't seen this here before: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/313feb4eab9a

This came up in a discussion I was listening to yesterday put on by the Wilson Center a few years ago.

Apparently the Czech example is the only war plans that have ever surfaced. The rest were generally kept in Moscow or haven't appeared out of the archives yet (though since then Poland's did).

The above talk is actually great for understanding how the Warsaw Pact was really run and it's part of the Parallel History Project which discovered the Czech Plans. They talk about their non-use in any matter (it was always the Soviets) in other countries. The East Germans did nearly intervene during Prague, until everyone realized how bad that would look for obvious reasons. How the despite any ideas of US-Euro friction with NATO was view it didn't come close to the absolute and total non-entity everyone but the Soviets were viewed in regard to the Warsaw Pact. There is discussion about the reliability debates inside US Intelligence regarding the Satellite states. I'm really underselling how good the two presentations are.

It's really a nice listen, of course you also have to enjoy talks like these in the first place. :v:

quote:

A collection of recently declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents demonstrates that in the early 1980s the U.S. government learned quickly of new Warsaw Pact planning instruments and accurately assessed the role that the Soviet Union's Warsaw Pact allies were expected to play in a conflict in Europe. The new CIA release confirms contemporaneous and later Western assumptions about the inner-workings of the military pact which was built to fight NATO, but was in fact used to suppress dissent within the Soviet empire.

Following introductory remarks by History and Public Policy Program Director Christian Ostermann, former CIA analyst Aris Pappas explained that the analytical documents in the collection reflected what had been an ongoing and contentious debate within the U.S. intelligence community on the military reliability of Non-Soviet Warsaw Pact (NSWP) forces. Some observers suggested that they were not likely to play a major role in a possible European conflict, while others pointed out that cautious military planning required NSWP forces to be taken seriously. While working as a CIA analyst himself, Pappas concluded that NSWP forces were likely to be at least initially reliable in the event of war, but that stiff and effective NATO resistance had the potential to undermine their will to fight during a protracted conflict.

Perhaps to decrease their own uncertainty on the core question of NSWP reliability, the USSR developed the 1980 wartime statute to formalize the procedures by which the Soviet Union would seize operational control over Eastern European military forces. However according to Harvard Cold War Studies Project Director Mark Kramer, it did little to change plans which had in fact been in place for years. Pointing to the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, Kramer suggested that the actual preparations undertaken for the invasion in 1968 were very similar to procedures codified later in the 1980 statute. On the other hand, Kramer noted that the Warsaw Pact was a military alliance that was only used against internal enemies, as when the Soviet led Pact invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, and threatened to invade Poland in 1981. How preparations for a war against NATO might have differed from these mobilizations against internal threats remains an open question.

When viewed in a broader Cold War context, Parallel History Project Coordinator Vojtech Mastny explained that the 1980 wartime statute�like its predecessor, the 1969 peacetime statute�was a product of its times. The peacetime statute�which codified the relationship between Warsaw Pact member states in times of peace�was drafted as a result of discussions among Warsaw Pact foreign ministers about the then-ongoing Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) negotiations. Similarly the 1980 wartime statute, Mastny suggested, may have been a Soviet effort to �tighten the reigns' on its allies in response to the rise in international tensions which followed the collapse of d�tente in the late 1970s.

Romania, more than any other Warsaw Pact member state, chafed at these Soviet efforts to control its armed forces, and consistently opposed Soviet influence from the 1960s onward, according to former Romanian defense ministry advisor Larry Watts. Upon receiving the first draft of the 1980 wartime statute from the Soviets, Watts explained how the Romanians responded by returning it with line-by-line edits inserted into the text. In its propaganda, the USSR attempted to portray Romanian opposition to Soviet influence in the Warsaw Pact as mindless and reflexive. Instead, Watts posited that this resistance was part of a long-term Romanian strategy to make the Pact as democratic and consultative in its governance as its 1955 founding treaty stated it should be.

Despite Romania's efforts, Institute of World Politics Professor Walter Jajko pointed out that the ideals outlined in the 1955 Warsaw Treaty were never respected by the Soviet Union, and suggested that the Pact was most useful as an instrument for controlling Eastern Europe. Operationally speaking, in the event of a crisis, the Soviet general staff�comprised almost exclusively of Russians�would take charge of all NSWP armed forces. Down the chain of command, Jajko explained how Soviet operational groups were seconded to Eastern European commanders to monitor and ensure their compliance with Soviet orders.

As a CIA officer and former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, Fritz Ermarth had access to the CIA's recently declassified documents almost as they were produced and was an active consumer of the analysis produced by people like Aris Pappas. While Pappas in his talk characterized the documents as �confirmatory rather than revealing,' during the 1980s, Ermarth explained that they provided a wealth of Indications and Warning (I&W) information which was extremely useful at the time. Despite the tensions which then prevailed, reports and analytical documents from the new CIA release played an important role in assuring U.S. policy makers that a conflict with the Warsaw Pact was not on the horizon, and that the Cold War would remain cold.

Marshal Prolapse fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Mar 28, 2014

# ? Mar 28, 2014 18:07

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

MrYenko posted:

They haven't been replaced, because the VC-25 program was hideously, stupendously expensive, and every VC and VH program (I'm looking at you, VH-71 program) since has had similar problems. I can't wait to see a president try to justify a two or three billion dollar program to build him a personal jet fleet.

That ties into my feeling that we spend way too much protecting the president. I mean, if someone is dumb enough to off him, we get another one, and the news gets to orgasm in delight at all the drone strikes. The office is important, but the individual is not. And you can't shoot down the office.

I'm very much of the opinion that if a C-17 or V-22 is good enough to move our military around, paint a couple white, and use them to move the President.

I get why when it comes to personal protection, the President gets such elaborate security. I once read a paper by the secret service, studying assassination patterns in the USA. The most difficult attacker to protect against is the crazy that is trying to assassinate a target and does not care if they live or not. These types of attackers also tend to gravitate toward big targets. Thus, the president receives a lot of 'consideration' from these sorts of people.

But yeah, otherwise I agree with you. I think thanks to the cold war, US defense considerations now seem to think they have to cover all conceivable threats, instead of all practical threats. It's an important distinction, since the latter is finite, but the former is infinite. I think this approach has spread to the protection of the president, as well. Once security was for a practical purpose; but now it is a sign of ostentation and wealth of the office, like if the president insisted he be accompanied on foreign visits with a C-17 full of war elephants or something.

PS> A C-17 accompanies the president on all foreign visits as they are hauling his bullet-proof limos about.

# ? Mar 28, 2014 19:02

Godholio: Aug 28, 2002; Does a bear split in the woods near Zheleznogorsk?

BIG HEADLINE posted:

...which is why I used the word "still." Because we all know the US Government isn't shy about buying things redundantly when a newer or flashier model comes out.

That explains why the Air Force is still flying B-52s (1960s), KC-135s and RC-135s (50s/60s), E-3s, F-15s, F-16s, and A-10s (70s).

There's no money to replace the VC-25, and no compelling reasons to find it.

# ? Mar 28, 2014 19:47

KYOON GRIFFEY JR: Apr 12, 2010; Runner-up, TRP Sack Race 2021/22

MrYenko posted:

They haven't been replaced, because the VC-25 program was hideously, stupendously expensive, and every VC and VH program (I'm looking at you, VH-71 program) since has had similar problems. I can't wait to see a president try to justify a two or three billion dollar program to build him a personal jet fleet.

That ties into my feeling that we spend way too much protecting the president. I mean, if someone is dumb enough to off him, we get another one, and the news gets to orgasm in delight at all the drone strikes. The office is important, but the individual is not. And you can't shoot down the office.

I'm very much of the opinion that if a C-17 or V-22 is good enough to move our military around, paint a couple white, and use them to move the President.

I'd argue that the real value of the VC-25 is that you can actually get some poo poo done while you traipse around due to secure communications units and all the bells and whistles that are installed.

Not that you couldn't do that anyway with a C-17, but then you're still talking about a specialized airframe dedicated for the purpose, and then why not just use a civilian airframe?

# ? Mar 28, 2014 19:52

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

I'd argue that the real value of the VC-25 is that you can actually get some poo poo done while you traipse around due to secure communications units and all the bells and whistles that are installed.

Not that you couldn't do that anyway with a C-17, but then you're still talking about a specialized airframe dedicated for the purpose, and then why not just use a civilian airframe?

Bingo. How many days of the year does the President spend somewhere other than DC? That thing is more than just a way to get him and his entourage from point A to point B, it's basically an oval office with wings.

Consider that the airframe and it's mission as we conceive of it came about during the mid-latter cold war as well, and that "scramble the POTUS off the ground and out of range of the incoming strike about to glass DC" was a very real part of all that. I have no loving clue exactly what the capabilities of that aircraft are (they're undoubtedly classified as all hot holy gently caress) but it doesn't take some imagination to figure out that it goes significantly beyond basic communications and being able to get some paperwork done en route to a summit or whatever.

# ? Mar 28, 2014 20:36

Doctor Grape Ape: Aug 26, 2005; Dammit Doc, I just bought this for you 3 months ago. Try and keep it around for a bit longer this time.

MrYenko posted:

And you can't shoot down the office.

You can shoot down an office.

The VC-25s have to be among the lowest flight hour 747 hulls in the world (and arguably the most rigorously maintained), replacing them now (or anytime in the next 20-25 years) is a stupid waste of money. Though I think they should roll the 707s out of retirement because nothing says America better than an ear-bleedingly loud airplane that leaves plumes of noxious black smoke in its wake.

# ? Mar 28, 2014 20:42

mllaneza: Apr 28, 2007; Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952

Nebakenezzer posted:

But yeah, otherwise I agree with you. I think thanks to the cold war, US defense considerations now seem to think they have to cover all conceivable threats, instead of all practical threats.

That's actually the Pearl Harbor lesson. When there is an active threat, you cover all the bases and then think up some new bases and cover those too.

# ? Mar 28, 2014 21:33

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

mllaneza posted:

That's actually the Pearl Harbor lesson. When there is an active threat, you cover all the bases and then think up some new bases and cover those too.

Is it? Or is the lesson of Pearl Harbor "don't underestimate people just because they are not white?"

Actually you could be right about the lesson of Pearl Harbor, but that doesn't change my point: defense issues from a pure security or economic perspective have to be informed by the fact your resources are finite. Trying to defend all conceivable bases against all forms of attack will not only fail, but be an enormous waste as well.

e: what he said vv

Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Mar 29, 2014

# ? Mar 28, 2014 22:29

iyaayas01: Feb 19, 2010; Perry'd

Assess capabilities, not intentions.

# ? Mar 28, 2014 22:44

movax: Aug 30, 2008

Nebakenezzer posted:

Is it? Or is the lesson of Pearl Harbor "don't underestimate people just because they are not white?"

I'm pretty sure we still haven't / never will learn this lesson.

# ? Mar 28, 2014 22:59

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Nebakenezzer posted:

Is it? Or is the lesson of Pearl Harbor "don't underestimate people just because they are not white?"

The military didn't underestimate the threat posed by the Japanese, at least not at any command-level. That issue was a lot more the general public trading on tired steriotypes left over from the panic over the "yellow peril" re: Chinese immigration and just generic 1920-30s era orientalism and hick-level racism. If anything the Department of War thought Japan was THE threat in the 20s and 30s due to the threat they posed to Dutch rubber, the belligerence of their military, and the fact that most of our extra-territorial interests were in the Pacific. Germany at the time was a defeated shell of its Imperial strength and the Soviets, while concerning from an ideological perspective for a country still terrified of anarchists, were busy fighting civil wars and getting their asses kicked by military superpowers like Poland.

Basically everything that we were doing on a military footing pre-WW2 was looking towards the Pacific and trying everything conceivable to contain the Japanese with as few resources as possible.

gently caress, it's worth noting that of all the branches, the Navy was the only one that got anything like funding in the 20s and 30s. While the Army was at historically low manpower levels the Navy was laying down multiple heavy CV hulls and converting post-treaty limitation cruiser hulls into yet more CVs. The expansion of the USN during that period was really significant and paid off MASSIVELY in the early 40s.

You don't spend that kind of money in the inter-war period and build up huge naval bases in Hawaii and the Philippines if your threat assessment for the pacific is "lol yellow people"

edit: Frankly if there's anyone we under-estimated it was the Germans. No one really thought they could remilitarize as fast as they did. There's a reason so many people post-WW2 were really loving eager to turn German speaking Central Europe into 2-5 countries with agrarian economies (and no, it wasn't the Holocaust - no one gave two shits about that until the 60s, really).

Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Mar 28, 2014

# ? Mar 28, 2014 23:11

spankmeister: Jun 15, 2008

Yeah the Japanese had been kicking rear end since their war with Russia in the early 20th century so I don't suppose anyone thought they were weak.

# ? Mar 28, 2014 23:16

Alchenar: Apr 9, 2008

Probably the lesson of Pearl Harbor is 'when your radar operator reports a large incoming raid, don't ignore it'.

# ? Mar 28, 2014 23:23

BIG HEADLINE: Jun 13, 2006; "Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"

spankmeister posted:

Yeah the Japanese had been kicking rear end since their war with Russia in the early 20th century so I don't suppose anyone thought they were weak.

"Hey Japan, since you only have to defend *one* ocean, you only get to build 315,000 tons of ships for every 525,000 we and Britain get to build. Oh, and if you decide to build any of these newfangled 'aircraft carriers,' those gotta be smaller than ours, too." :colbert:

# ? Mar 29, 2014 01:34

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Alchenar posted:

Probably the lesson of Pearl Harbor is 'when your radar operator reports a large incoming raid, don't ignore it'.

If there's any realistic lesson from Pearl it's not to freak out about legal immigrants (not to mention their 100% US Citizen children) and assume their ~~true loyalty~~ lies with the motherland. Turns out most people who travel thousands of miles to work lovely agricultural jobs still consider that an upgrade from whatever home was and don't want to gently caress up their American gravy train.

Ignoring proper dispersal rules in favor of tight formations (that are hypothetically easier to protect against the non-threat of sabotage) doesn't work out so well when a real shooting war begins.

Number of aircraft destroyed on the ground by ~~immigrants~~ 5th column Japanese sleeper agents: 0

Number destroyed by the IJN: ~160, roughly same number damaged.

Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Mar 29, 2014

# ? Mar 29, 2014 01:44

Godholio: Aug 28, 2002; Does a bear split in the woods near Zheleznogorsk?

Cyrano4747 posted:

edit: Frankly if there's anyone we under-estimated it was the Germans. No one really thought they could remilitarize as fast as they did. There's a reason so many people post-WW2 were really loving eager to turn German speaking Central Europe into 2-5 countries with agrarian economies (and no, it wasn't the Holocaust - no one gave two shits about that until the 60s, really).

By 1930 everyone knew the Germans were building up again...but it was less clear how much/how well they were doing so. The Germans at that point weren't belligerent assholes, and their military staff were fairly open and friendly with everyone. There were a lot of two-way exchange assignments and open collaboration on emerging technologies.

# ? Mar 29, 2014 02:50

Mortabis: Jul 8, 2010; I am stupid

Truman cared about the Holocaust.

# ? Mar 29, 2014 03:03

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Mortabis posted:

Truman cared about the Holocaust.

Truman cared about punishing Nazi war criminals, there's a pretty big difference there.

There are a few films and such that played footsie with acknowledging that the targeting of the Jews was something big and different (Night and Fog comes to mind), but really the notion that the Holocaust was a thing in and of itself didn't really come to the foreground, whether we're talking culture or politics, until the Eichmann trial.

# ? Mar 29, 2014 03:12

SgtMongoose: Feb 10, 2007

Cyrano4747 posted:

The military didn't underestimate the threat posed by the Japanese, at least not at any command-level.

Basically everything that we were doing on a military footing pre-WW2 was looking towards the Pacific and trying everything conceivable to contain the Japanese with as few resources as possible.

The Navy at the very least considered war with Japan inevitable pretty much as soon as the U.S. acquired the Philippines and a planner looked at a map of western Pacific trade routes. By 1911 the Naval War College had determined that such a war would go roughly as:

- Japan would strike first, seizing U.S. holdings in the Western Pacific, particularly the Philippines.
- The U.S. fleet would sortie from Hawaii with the goal of anchoring off of Okinawa.
- The axis of advance would cut through the Central Pacific and include the island-hopping seizure of the Marshalls and Carolines.
- Manila would be recaptured.
- The fleet would sortie with its own, mobile, advance base.
- Japan would be beaten through economic blockade.

War Plan Orange pretty much had the major strokes set in stone.

BIG HEADLINE posted:

"Hey Japan, since you only have to defend *one* ocean, you only get to build 315,000 tons of ships for every 525,000 we and Britain get to build. Oh, and if you decide to build any of these newfangled 'aircraft carriers,' those gotta be smaller than ours, too."

The secret behind the 5:5:3 ratio was that after years of wargaming a Japan-U.S. war, the USN had determined that 5:3 was the necessary tonnage ratio for the USN, accounting for attrition to skirmishes and the voyage, to sail across the Pacific and battle the IJN with at least tonnage parity on what was basically its home turf.

# ? Mar 29, 2014 03:39

wdarkk: Oct 26, 2007; Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten

Cyrano4747 posted:

gently caress, it's worth noting that of all the branches, the Navy was the only one that got anything like funding in the 20s and 30s. While the Army was at historically low manpower levels the Navy was laying down multiple heavy CV hulls and converting post-treaty limitation cruiser hulls into yet more CVs. The expansion of the USN during that period was really significant and paid off MASSIVELY in the early 40s.

You don't spend that kind of money in the inter-war period and build up huge naval bases in Hawaii and the Philippines if your threat assessment for the pacific is "lol yellow people"

Didn't the two-ocean navy act budget for building something like18 aircraft carriers during "peace"? I'm not sure there were 18 large aircraft carriers TOTAL built at that point.

# ? Mar 29, 2014 04:11

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

BIG HEADLINE posted:

"Hey Japan, since you only have to defend *one* ocean, you only get to build 315,000 tons of ships for every 525,000 we and Britain get to build. Oh, and if you decide to build any of these newfangled 'aircraft carriers,' those gotta be smaller than ours, too."

Excellent post/username combo

Cyrano4747 posted:

Truman cared about punishing Nazi war criminals, there's a pretty big difference there.

There are a few films and such that played footsie with acknowledging that the targeting of the Jews was something big and different (Night and Fog comes to mind), but really the notion that the Holocaust was a thing in and of itself didn't really come to the foreground, whether we're talking culture or politics, until the Eichmann trial.

Really? Wow.

I've wondered what people's reaction (both the military-intelligence types who were discovering these things and later, the man on the street) but didn't realize it wasn't all out there immediately after the war.

As for the Japanese, maybe my view is being skewed a bit by contemporary Life. They ran this:

which except for the last one were all obsolete.

(PS: while finding that image I found this article on how not to handle a gun. TFR, you are welcome.

# ? Mar 29, 2014 04:43

iyaayas01: Feb 19, 2010; Perry'd

Cyrano4747 posted:

The expansion of the USN during that period was really significant and paid off MASSIVELY in the early 40s.

Especially considering that at one point a damaged Enterprise was the sole USN carrier in the entire Pacific Theater of Operations.

# ? Mar 29, 2014 05:16

MrChips: Jun 10, 2005; FLIGHT SAFETY TIP: Fatties out first

Presented without further comment other than :stare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ammA07ejkWk

# ? Mar 29, 2014 06:51

BIG HEADLINE: Jun 13, 2006; "Stand back, Ottawan ruffian, or face my lumens!"

MrChips posted:

Presented without further comment other than

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ammA07ejkWk

On a semi-related note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Weapons_Emergency_Separation_System

I love the name of it. It sounds like a *safety* feature! :v:

Can't have those thermonuclear warheads going to waste!

...of course, this was obviously back when the doctrine was to send in the bombers at high altitudes.

BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Mar 29, 2014

# ? Mar 29, 2014 07:06

Bacarruda: Mar 30, 2011; Mutiny!?! More like "reinterpreted orders"

Cyrano4747 posted:

If there's any realistic lesson from Pearl it's not to freak out about legal immigrants (not to mention their 100% US Citizen children) and assume their ~~true loyalty~~ lies with the motherland. Turns out most people who travel thousands of miles to work lovely agricultural jobs still consider that an upgrade from whatever home was and don't want to gently caress up their American gravy train.

Given recent events, it was somewhat understandable (though Executive Order 9066 was still hosed up).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niihau_Incident

# ? Mar 29, 2014 14:12

Snowdens Secret: Dec 29, 2008; Someone got you a obnoxiously racist av.

Cyrano4747 posted:

If there's any realistic lesson from Pearl it's not to freak out about legal immigrants (not to mention their 100% US Citizen children) and assume their ~~true loyalty~~ lies with the motherland. Turns out most people who travel thousands of miles to work lovely agricultural jobs still consider that an upgrade from whatever home was and don't want to gently caress up their American gravy train.

Well considering a prominent minority gets accused of similar twisted loyalties today, that lesson apparently hasn't really sunk in.

Although at least no one's been so gauche as to suggest putting them in camps

# ? Mar 29, 2014 14:23

StandardVC10: Feb 6, 2007; This avatar now 50% more dark mode compliant

Snowdens Secret posted:

Although at least no one's been so gauche as to suggest putting them in camps

I think Michelle Malkin or someone of her ilk was calling for internment camps of Arabs after 9/11 at one point.

# ? Mar 29, 2014 15:18

Snowdens Secret: Dec 29, 2008; Someone got you a obnoxiously racist av.

Anyone know anything about Russian drones? I'm seeing reports of them in the skies near Ukraine and realize I know nothing of their capabilities or main manufacturers / design bureaus. Are these more handheld or are they fielding full-blown Reaperskis?

# ? Mar 29, 2014 19:05

iyaayas01: Feb 19, 2010; Perry'd

Snowdens Secret posted:

Anyone know anything about Russian drones? I'm seeing reports of them in the skies near Ukraine and realize I know nothing of their capabilities or main manufacturers / design bureaus. Are these more handheld or are they fielding full-blown Reaperskis?

In-between. AFAIK they don't have anything close to a Reaperski (or even a Predski), everything they have is similar to the Hunter or Shadow. In fact, one of their systems is an IAI product that is a development of the RQ-2.

# ? Mar 29, 2014 21:10

Mortabis: Jul 8, 2010; I am stupid

StandardVC10 posted:

I think Michelle Malkin or someone of her ilk was calling for internment camps of Arabs after 9/11 at one point.

Pretty sure he's talking about Jews and Israel.

# ? Mar 30, 2014 00:43

Godholio: Aug 28, 2002; Does a bear split in the woods near Zheleznogorsk?

Mortabis posted:

Pretty sure he's talking about Jews and Israel.

Or the camps the US put Japanese Americans into...

# ? Mar 30, 2014 01:14

Mortabis: Jul 8, 2010; I am stupid

Godholio posted:

Or the camps the US put Japanese Americans into...

Snowdens Secret posted:

Well considering a prominent minority gets accused of similar twisted loyalties today, that lesson apparently hasn't really sunk in.

Although at least no one's been so gauche as to suggest putting them in camps

He could be talking about Arabs but that would suggest Snowdens Secret isn't making a pun, which is implausible :v:

# ? Mar 30, 2014 01:26

Dandywalken: Feb 11, 2014

Any of you fine folks know any info in regards to the composition of the Chinese military pre-1985? Namely the Guangzhou district in the South?

I'm told that they were less equipped there than the Northern and Vietnamese borders, and primarily operated foot-bound infantry (motorization being post 85). AA assets were primarily towed aside from man-portable missiles. Armor was primarily the earlier variants of the Type 59, generally those with the 100 rather than the 105mm cannon.

On paper, these guys were the stereotypical "human wave" myth that has dogged the Chinese post-Korea.

# ? Mar 30, 2014 04:27

Smiling Jack: Dec 2, 2001; I sucked a dick for bus fare and then I walked home.

Dandywalken posted:

Any of you fine folks know any info in regards to the composition of the Chinese military pre-1985? Namely the Guangzhou district in the South?

This is a intriguingly specific question.

# ? Mar 30, 2014 04:43

Dandywalken: Feb 11, 2014

Yeah my bad, that sounds a bit spergy now that I reread :P Trying to gather info for the new Wargame: Red Dragon videogame coming out. Currently the TOE's are a bit hosed up in the 1984 Hong Kong Invasion campaign, and was gonna present a revised one using assets contained ingame to the developers to hopefully get implemented during the next beta phase.

# ? Mar 30, 2014 04:46

Koesj: Aug 3, 2003

Dandywalken posted:

Yeah my bad, that sounds a bit spergy now that I reread :P Trying to gather info for the new Wargame: Red Dragon videogame coming out. Currently the TOE's are a bit hosed up in the 1984 Hong Kong Invasion campaign, and was gonna present a revised one using assets contained ingame to the developers to hopefully get implemented during the next beta phase.

Did you try the Wargame:ALB thread?

# ? Mar 30, 2014 06:45

Dandywalken: Feb 11, 2014

Of course. But this is a bit more specific than the game's thread pertaining only to a single game, and I was hoping that somewhere there'd be a resource of information regarding such a thing to draw upon in the future. This seemed like the perfect thread to ask. Plus, I already posted there as well :P

Its bizarre how China apparently went all the way until 19-loving-85 before going "Yeah, these dudes should have trucks tbh". They suddenly got their poo poo together very fast compared to preceding years. Granted, many individual examples were still just arbitrary baby-steps towards actual modernization (switching to 105mm tanks with DU penetrators, etc), but it seemed to as a whole have been a sudden and grand, sweeping change. I wonder what took them so drat long to wake up?

They shrunk the number of military military regions from 11 to 7, and in general began modernizing and streamlining in 85. I really wonder if the Soviet Union would have stood longer had they done similar in the late 70's and revised the whole "Category C, Category B, Category A" system and downsized to modernize/streamline their forces. Were the higher-ups just too entrenched and generally against reform of such a scale that such an option wasnt feasible? Or was it just a lovely idea for an armed force as large as theirs?

Dandywalken fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Mar 30, 2014

# ? Mar 30, 2014 07:28

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# ? May 22, 2024 17:47

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Dandywalken posted:

Of course. But this is a bit more specific than the game's thread pertaining only to a single game, and I was hoping that somewhere there'd be a resource of information regarding such a thing to draw upon in the future. This seemed like the perfect thread to ask. Plus, I already posted there as well :P

Its bizarre how China apparently went all the way until 19-loving-85 before going "Yeah, these dudes should have trucks tbh". They suddenly got their poo poo together very fast compared to preceding years. Granted, many individual examples were still just arbitrary baby-steps towards actual modernization (switching to 105mm tanks with DU penetrators, etc), but it seemed to as a whole have been a sudden and grand, sweeping change. I wonder what took them so drat long to wake up?

They shrunk the number of military military regions from 11 to 7, and in general began modernizing and streamlining in 85. I really wonder if the Soviet Union would have stood longer had they done similar in the late 70's and revised the whole "Category C, Category B, Category A" system and downsized to modernize/streamline their forces. Were the higher-ups just too entrenched and generally against reform of such a scale that such an option wasnt feasible? Or was it just a lovely idea for an armed force as large as theirs?

A lot of it is due to fallout from the cultural revolution and the whole red guard fiasco. There was a period, and I think your region was one of the more heavily affected, where the whole thing degenerated ino boarder line civil war between red guard units. Those weren't actual military of course, but they liberated a lot of equipment from local depots.

Basically Deng needed to be 100 percent sure he had that crap put down and the military firmly in his corner before he went about modernizing anything outside his immediate control.

It's a pretty common phenominon in systems where the loyalty of the entire military isn't a given

# ? Mar 30, 2014 13:19

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