|
Groda posted:You probably aren't thinking of the AC-130 etc but here's my favorite (7,5 cm Pak 40): The Soviets put 100mm recoilless rifles on a SB variant - ANT-46, but it didn't hit production.
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 13:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 04:36 |
|
|
Fangz posted:What's the largest calibre gun that has been mounted on a plane? I think it's the 105mm artillery on the AC-130E, H, and U. This, though, might win the title of most firepower per pound. Really, it's a dark blue paint job and COBRA markings away from being a best selling GIJOE toy.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 14:17
|
|
|
vuk83 posted:The topo ridge is the highest point. The military ridge is the highest point where you still have eyes on the bottom of the ridge line. So no one can sneak up on you Staying below the topographical ridge also keeps you from being silhouetted against the sky.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 14:37
|
|
|
SocketWrench posted:You can do lots of weird poo poo when you're drunk on Vodka 24/7 The Tsar tank was built in an era when no one quite knew what tanks are supposed to look like, and gliding tanks aren't anything exceptional. If you want to look at the real crazy tank designs, there's always the T-39, a tank so crazy that the T-35 looked like a practical alternative in comparison.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 14:56
|
|
|
SocketWrench posted:You can do lots of weird poo poo when you're drunk on Vodka 24/7 They also had a program where a bomber carried up to 5 fighters because hey, why not. And it was actually used in WW2. And it was successful. Phone-posting, but look up Zveno.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 15:33
|
|
|
So I just finished Red Moon Rising which I thoroughly enjoyed. I really didn't know much about the space race in general and couldn't have even told you who Korolev was prior to reading said book. I don't really have much else to say except that rocketry was awesome and also I didn't realize von Braun was so awful.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 15:33
|
|
|
bewbies posted:I don't really have much else to say except that rocketry was awesome and also I didn't realize von Braun was so awful. Nazi Schmazi... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDjmEj25k5U
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 15:35
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:The Tsar tank was built in an era when no one quite knew what tanks are supposed to look like, and gliding tanks aren't anything exceptional. If you want to look at the real crazy tank designs, there's always the T-39, a tank so crazy that the T-35 looked like a practical alternative in comparison. Hell, the Germans did some turbo-batshit insane stuff throughout the whole war what with all the ridiculous super tanks.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 15:40
|
|
|
My grampa actually worked for Von Braun for a bit, its not every man who can literally say his boss is a slavedriver 
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 15:41
|
|
|
JaucheCharly posted:You know, that's extremely interesting. What did the Germans do in WW2? They did this: quote:German firms such as I.G. Farben had by the early 1920s come up with a process for making synthetic methanol from coal, a development which was widely reported in the popular and technical press. Meanwhile in Italy: quote:In Italy, the first Congress of Industrial Chemistry which took place in April 1924 focused strongly on fuel problems, with a large percentage of the papers concerned with alcohol fuels. A strong scientific endorsement of the idea of using surplus crops in the national fuel mix led to a national decree on mandatory use of alcohol fuels in 1925. Several oil companies initially refused to blend alcohol with gasoline, but government pressures prevailed. And some other countries: quote:Other nations, such as Hungary, Poland, and Brazil would follow the French and Italian examples with mandatory alcohol and gasoline blends in national fuels in the 1920s and 30s, while the tax incentive approach was adopted by many other European nations such as Switzerland, Sweden, Germany and Czechoslovakia. I know for a fact that Sweden used a poo poo ton of biomass syngas (usually wood, but coal and natural gas works too) propelled cars and trucks. The technology reached practical maturity in 1901, so it was around for ww1 too. Looked like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGO5J9HMkGE http://www.bandofbrotherstour.com/woodgasvehicles.html quote:Wood gas vehicles were used during World War II, as a consequence of the rationing of fossil fuels. In Germany alone, around 500,000 "producer gas" vehicles were in use at the end of the war. Trucks, buses, tractors, motorcycles, ships and trains were equipped with a wood gasification unit. In 1942 (when wood gas had not yet reached the height of its popularity), there were about 73,000 wood gas vehicles in Sweden, 65,000 in France, 10,000 in Denmark, and almost 8,000 in Switzerland. In 1944, Finland had 43,000 "woodmobiles", of which 30,000 were buses and trucks, 7,000 private vehicles, 4,000 tractors and 600 boats. "
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 15:47
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Hell, the Germans did some turbo-batshit insane stuff throughout the whole war what with all the ridiculous super tanks. Their ridiculous super tanks weren't particularly creative. The interbellum designs are where it's at!
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 16:01
|
|
|
bewbies posted:So I just finished Red Moon Rising which I thoroughly enjoyed. I really didn't know much about the space race in general and couldn't have even told you who Korolev was prior to reading said book. What was awful about him again, all I know is he gets quote mined a lot by Moon Landing Hoax people.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 16:07
|
|
|
re: wood gas, there's a bit of hobbyist renaissance going on in this regard Finnish Centre Party chairman's woodgas rig   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZdPkrghUZM From Sipilä's home page (can you guess that he's an engineer by trade): Tekniset tiedot Model: Chevrolet El Camino, '87 Engine: 400 cid (6,5 l), remmiahdettu, automatic Fuel: wood, alternatively petrol Consumption: Wood about 40 kg / 100 km Fuel cost: 2 €/100 km Range: A bit over 200 km/ load (depending on speed possible to carry fuel for 1300 km range) Top speed: over 140 km/h Weight: ~ 2 000 kg Woodgas equipment: Built 2007 Engine's electronic control: Motec M800, electronically controlled lambda mixing, possibility for combined use of petrol and woodgas, automaattinen woodgas ignition Emissions: Meets the E4 vehicle inspection norm when on woodgas Pimpmust posted:Not the most graceful of add-ons, but it worked. Hey, it's perfect for the forthcoming post-WW3 dystopia... as long as some trees survive in the taiga
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 16:09
|
|
|
Good lord, forty kilos of wood to go 100 km? That ElCam is pretty bitchin, though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 16:10
|
|
|
Raenir Salazar posted:What was awful about him again, all I know is he gets quote mined a lot by Moon Landing Hoax people. He was part of Paperclip, before building moon rockets he built the V2.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 16:14
|
|
|
Also depending on who you asked, he brutally punished slaves who hosed with his precious rockets. Even in the best light, Von Braun comes off as a guy who REALLY likes rockets and saw the Nazis as a means to an end, even if it meant a shitton of human rights violations along the way. "I aim for the stars, but sometimes I hit London*" and all that. *He probably didn't actually say this. EDIT: VVVVV haha holy poo poo I can't believe he actually did that. The guy was good at rockets but seriously poo poo at everything else, up to and including his personality. Double Edit: Like I said, it depends on who you ask. Some people say he had no choice, which is true since they would have shot him if he tried anything, while others say that he personally whipped slaves if they tried to sabotage his rockets. Don Gato fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Jul 31, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 16:26
|
|
|
I got to visit the Redstone Arsenal when I was in Huntsville. The museum there has a bunch of Von Braun memorabilia; they have his high-school notebook which is full of Verne-esque doodles of spaceships, and they have his old bicycle, on which he sent his little brother down the mountain from Peenemunde to see if the allies wanted him to surrender. He might have been kind of a tool.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 16:33
|
|
|
Don Gato posted:Also depending on who you asked, he brutally punished slaves who hosed with his precious rockets. Even in the best light, Von Braun comes off as a guy who REALLY likes rockets and saw the Nazis as a means to an end, even if it meant a shitton of human rights violations along the way. "I aim for the stars, but sometimes I hit London*" and all that. I don't particularly see designer the V2 as something that makes him anymore awful then Heisenberg for the Atomic bombs; at least Braun had space travel in mind from the outset. There doesn't seem to be much evidence that he had any control over the treatment of the slave labourers or a say in their use.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 16:42
|
|
|
Pimpmust posted:I know for a fact that Sweden used a poo poo ton of biomass syngas (usually wood, but coal and natural gas works too) propelled cars and trucks. The technology reached practical maturity in 1901, so it was around for ww1 too. I studied combustion engineering in Sweden, and you would not believe how many theses/books/experiments we have on these things in our university library. From the turn of the century all the way to the 1980's.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 16:47
|
|
|
Raenir Salazar posted:I don't particularly see designer the V2 as something that makes him anymore awful then Heisenberg for the Atomic bombs; at least Braun had space travel in mind from the outset. There doesn't seem to be much evidence that he had any control over the treatment of the slave labourers or a say in their use. There actually seems to a lot of evidence that suggests he was at minimum tactily approving of the conditions at the V2 plant, and more likely was outright enthusiastic about it. More damning to me was his treatment of the laborers at Peenemunde, as he was in pretty much complete control of things there and there are a lot of eyewitness accounts of him authorizing things like floggings and whatnot.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 16:55
|
|
|
Raenir Salazar posted:I don't particularly see designer the V2 as something that makes him anymore awful then Heisenberg for the Atomic bombs; at least Braun had space travel in mind from the outset. There doesn't seem to be much evidence that he had any control over the treatment of the slave labourers or a say in their use. You don't operate that high in the Nazi hierarchy without getting your hands dirty. I don't have any specific, juicy anecdotes at my fingertips, but just the network of really sleazy professional associations you have to join and party connections you have to maintain and keep to rise up through the administrative ranks to head a major project means at the very least that on some level you actually believe in the National Socialist program or you're willing to roll with it and consort with some real fucks to further your career. There's a level of responsibility past which "I was just doing my job" ceases to be a real answer anymore. Also, I doubt anyone who's ever visited the factory at Mittelwerk can maintain a good impression of the man. He steadfastly denied visiting the actual camp (where the prisoners slept) at Dora-Mittelbau, but he openly admitted visiting Mittelwerk (where the rockets were constructed inside a loving mountain) on numerous occasions. Conditions there were abysmal, inmates were treated awfully (even by camp factory standards) on the line, and death was frequent. Between the factory and the camp more workers died building the rockets than were killed by the fuckers when launched. You can get tours of Mittelwerk today and if you're ever in the general area of Thuringia I highly recommend it. The short of it is the dude loving knew where his toys came from. That's not the kind of factory you spend more than ten seconds in without knowing exactly what the score is
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 16:58
|
|
|
On the other side of the coin my granpa had some interesting stories about Germans sitting out on the front porch and getting stone drunk in the middle of Bible-belt Alabama.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 16:59
|
|
|
Raenir Salazar posted:I don't particularly see designer the V2 as something that makes him anymore awful then Heisenberg for the Atomic bombs; at least Braun had space travel in mind from the outset. There doesn't seem to be much evidence that he had any control over the treatment of the slave labourers or a say in their use. The moral position of Heisenberg is something that is very much in debate. I think there's little question that had Heisenberg been successful in delivering Hitler the nuclear bomb, he'd be hugely maligned today and a big black mark on the field of theoretical physics. Even today people question things about whether Heisenberg really was trying to make the bomb, whether he was sabotaging the project, whether he was just incompetent, whether he had much of a choice in his involvement.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 17:11
|
|
|
Fangz posted:whether he had much of a choice in his involvement. He absolutely had a choice. He was a man of education and means who could have done something else, and didn't. There are the teeming millions of examples of Germans who fell in line with the party because of considerations about how it would affect their careers. At the same time, there many, many examples - some high profile, others not - of German professionals who did incredible violence to their career aspirations because they refused to fall in line and who either emigrated in the 30s or found another job and struggled on as best they could through the end of the war. It was an ugly, uncomfortable, ultimately unfair decision but it remained just that - a decision. Political, social, and professional ostracization was the name of the game after the mid-30s, not threats and forced compliance. This is one of the pretty big distinctions between how the Soviet/Stalinist and the Nazi systems worked.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 17:20
|
|
|
Fangz posted:The moral position of Heisenberg is something that is very much in debate. I think there's little question that had Heisenberg been successful in delivering Hitler the nuclear bomb, he'd be hugely maligned today and a big black mark on the field of theoretical physics. Even today people question things about whether Heisenberg really was trying to make the bomb, whether he was sabotaging the project, whether he was just incompetent, whether he had much of a choice in his involvement. Woops! I meant Oppenheimer, Regarding the Manhattan Project. Cyrano4747 posted:You don't operate that high in the Nazi hierarchy without getting your hands dirty. I don't have any specific, juicy anecdotes at my fingertips, but just the network of really sleazy professional associations you have to join and party connections you have to maintain and keep to rise up through the administrative ranks to head a major project means at the very least that on some level you actually believe in the National Socialist program or you're willing to roll with it and consort with some real fucks to further your career. There's a level of responsibility past which "I was just doing my job" ceases to be a real answer anymore. Sure but the question is did that happen to that extent; and to what extent is that morally culpable when that probably does happen all the time in the Military-Industrial Complex everywhere of people needing to do politics to do the work they actually wanting to do. Say you want to work on a new quantum computer design but to get funding the military insists you keep an eye open for dual-use purposes; and to keep that funding you need to rub shoulders with military-quasi politicians at events and so on. Isn't that the same? It seems odd to single out Braun for that if the evidence doesn't bear fruit for him having a say regarding the treatment of the labourers. quote:Also, I doubt anyone who's ever visited the factory at Mittelwerk can maintain a good impression of the man. He steadfastly denied visiting the actual camp (where the prisoners slept) at Dora-Mittelbau, but he openly admitted visiting Mittelwerk (where the rockets were constructed inside a loving mountain) on numerous occasions. Conditions there were abysmal, inmates were treated awfully (even by camp factory standards) on the line, and death was frequent. Between the factory and the camp more workers died building the rockets than were killed by the fuckers when launched. You can get tours of Mittelwerk today and if you're ever in the general area of Thuringia I highly recommend it. Doesn't the wikipedia page for Braun though mention he was disgusted by Mittelwerk's conditions? I think there's no doubt he rationalized a lot of stuff away but I think we need to reassess what blame we're assigning him.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 17:33
|
|
|
When you're talking about the Nazi system you're not just looking at rubbing shoulders with a bunch of sleazy high-ranking semi-political AF brass and LockMart executives. It's a deeply nested system of professional associations that are 100% run and maintained by the party from the very lowest levels of your professional/developmental path all the way to the top. Membership is mandatory, usually by law, to work in specific career fields and industries and it worked quite effectively to make sure that a certain degree of being willing to go along with the party line was evident. This was both a way of politically vetting people and also keeping some form of leverage over them, and very typical of how the Nazis placed party apparatuses in parallel with existing structures in German society. What's more, the level of scrutiny generally gets higher the more ambitious you get about your career. Let's take your average uni-prep high-school-ish (Gymnasium) teacher as an example, just because this is the profession I'm most familiar with and know most of the groups for. You go to university, get your teaching certification, pass your tests, and are ready to teach German youth. Congrats, now you need to join the National Socialist Teachers' League - the NSLB - as a prerequisite to any employment. If all you want to do is work in your classroom until retirement that's fine, and you can really plausibly claim after the war that you were just some poor bastard who wanted to teach high school math and didn't give two shits about that Party affiliation, Nazi ideologies, etc. On the other hand, let's say you want to start working your way up into the administrative ranks. First step would be to become the rector of your school, or maybe a school inspector at the lowest, most regional level possible. One of the things they're going to look into is your general political reliability and your NSLB standing. Are you an active, right thinking Party comrade? Or are you just a card-carrier? All things being equal the former is going to get the promotion, and not the latter. So, if you want to move up in life it is highly incentivized for you to get your rear end in gear and not only accept that the Nazi Party is running the show, but get active in promoting it and being a vocal leader in your community. But maybe you're just that good. You're such an awesome teacher that you score that rectorship without really giving two fucks about the Nazis and maybe even quietly grumbling about them at the bar. Now there's two things going on here: If you ever decide you dont like the party, well, gently caress Comerade, you just nuked your career. You're not only not getting promoted, you're getting demoted if not outright terminated. So there's that. But your'e also just as ambitious as you were before. Raw talent took you this far, but now you REALLY, no bullshit, need to be getting the right letters of recommendation from the right party officials in your area if you want to move on up to being a regional school inspector or maybe drawing a mid-level job in the local state's Ministry of Education. And so on and so forth. This is a really simple model to demonstrate a fairly complex web of arrangements and expectations, but you find it for every profession you care to name. It was a big part of how the Nazis maintained control over German academia during the 30s and 40s, especially given your average academic's unfortunate predilections towards critical though and unilateral decision making. If you want to read a book that does a much better job of examining these issues and in much greater depth I'd recommend Konrad Jarausch's The Unfree Professions. edit: with specific reference to von Braun (or Heisenberg, or Heidegger. . .) the point I'm making is that this is a system that politically vets people at every level and with increasing scrutiny. It isn't like western systems where you can be conducting research that is essentially underwritten by the military for some nasty guys but keep charging forward out of a love for pure science while deluding yourself about the reality of what you're doing. This is a system that very openly required you to join party groups and be an ever-more active and political participant in NSDAP poo poo to advance yourself professionally. There is no way you get to even work in a university lab without clearly articulating the correct beliefs etc, and there is no way you rise to be a major project director heading top-secret military projects without really, REALLY demonstrating that you're no-bullshit on board. While I suppose one could argue that you could profess all of the correct ideologies, show yourself to be a good Party Leader within your community and working environment, etc. just to advance your career while the whole time being a secret anti-Nazi, at that point does it matter? If they have essentially dangled the carrot close enough to your face to make you so systematically violate your own principles and further their own are you even distinguishable from the actual Party loyalist who does the exact same poo poo you do? Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jul 31, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 18:00
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:Political, social, and professional ostracization was the name of the game after the mid-30s, not threats and forced compliance. This is one of the pretty big distinctions between how the Soviet/Stalinist and the Nazi systems worked. Just for party membership or in general? Komsomol/KPSS membership wasn't forced onto anyone in Soviet Union either, and I'd say the threshold was higher than with entry to NSDAP in that communists were suspicious as hell. Communist Party membership didn't guarantee you couldn't get random visits from NKVD, though, but it was a boon to your future career much in the same way that NSDAP membership was alluring to German technocrats and industrialists.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 18:37
|
|
|
Taerkar posted:In general a larger cartridge also needs a longer barrel to take advantage of the extra propellant, but a longer cartridge doesn't necessary mean that there's more propellant. And of course the negative effect that a longer barrel has due to risk of droop, greater heat due to extra friction, etc... There was once a fighter aircraft cannon that used the same cartridge caliber as the GAU-8. More specifically, the Oerlikon KCA mounted in a conformal belly pod on the fighter version of the Saab 37 Viggen. It was a single-barrel gun though, but the SwAF still claimed it to be the most powerful gun ever mounted on a jet fighter. The barrel was about two meters long and it fired 360 g shells at a muzzle velocity of 1030 m/s, with a rate of fire of about 1350 rpm. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Jul 31, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 19:37
|
|
|
Nenonen posted:Just for party membership or in general? Komsomol/KPSS membership wasn't forced onto anyone in Soviet Union either, and I'd say the threshold was higher than with entry to NSDAP in that communists were suspicious as hell. Communist Party membership didn't guarantee you couldn't get random visits from NKVD, though, but it was a boon to your future career much in the same way that NSDAP membership was alluring to German technocrats and industrialists. I'm sure this aspect existed as well, but my understanding is that in exceptional circumstances where they 110% needed the specific field expertise of someone, they weren't above flat out leaning on him to do the work. Now, I'm more familiar with this from the angle of German engineers and scientists who were "encouraged" to work for the Soviets after the war, but it was my broad understanding that this applied to people inside the USSR as well who weren't on board with Stalin. See also the issue of people who did decide to opt out or were consciously excluded on religious/racial lines. Under the pre-war Nazis they were not only allowed to emigrate, but were somewhat encouraged to do so (albeit without taking any of their personal possessions or wealth with them). My understanding is that emigration from the USSR in the same period wasn't really an option. Correct me if I'm in error here. I'm far from an expert on soviet history. Also remember that I'm pretty specifically talking about the USSR as it existed in the 30s through Barbarossa, not before under Lenin et al and later during the Cold War.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 19:46
|
|
|
Thanks for the info on wood gas vehicles, my grandfather drove one during the war. Apparently they're still used in North Korea.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 20:39
|
|
|
P-Mack posted:Thanks for the info on wood gas vehicles, my grandfather drove one during the war. Apparently they're still used in North Korea. Without hyperbole, I think I'd rather be in the middle of Cannae or Stalingrad than live in North Korea.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 21:37
|
|
|
Komsomol membership definitely helped out when getting into university or government positions, but it was definitely possible to get pretty high without having any party affiliations at all.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 21:39
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:Komsomol membership definitely helped out when getting into university or government positions, but it was definitely possible to get pretty high without having any party affiliations at all. There's a whole sub-field of history that basically just compares dictatorships and one of the most fascinating things about it is looking at what, exactly, the specific mechanisms for control were. In all of them the system is going to get its hooks in you one way or the other, but the specific way that it's done varies an incredible amount. It really is neat to look at what specific mixture of carrot and stick, and via what means of application, was used to get similar results in systems that we intuitively want to lump together but which are extremely varied.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 21:59
|
|
|
Found The Guns of August going cheap in a local bookshop today so I grabbed it. The thread has claimed another victim.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 22:51
|
|
|
Arquinsiel posted:Found The Guns of August going cheap in a local bookshop today so I grabbed it. The thread has claimed another victim. It's not really milhist but if you like The Guns of August I also recommend The Proud Tower by the same author.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 23:45
|
|
|
TheFluff posted:It's not really milhist but if you like The Guns of August I also recommend The Proud Tower by the same author. She did an interesting book on Stillwell's experience in China, as well.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 00:31
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:There's a whole sub-field of history that basically just compares dictatorships and one of the most fascinating things about it is looking at what, exactly, the specific mechanisms for control were. In all of them the system is going to get its hooks in you one way or the other, but the specific way that it's done varies an incredible amount. It really is neat to look at what specific mixture of carrot and stick, and via what means of application, was used to get similar results in systems that we intuitively want to lump together but which are extremely varied. Can you recommend any books on the subject? It's a topic I've been interested in for a while but I can never find anything in depth.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 01:50
|
|
|
Arquinsiel posted:Found The Guns of August going cheap in a local bookshop today so I grabbed it. The thread has claimed another victim. Yeah well I read Ivan's War, Wages of Destruction (may actually be from the Nazi thread but still a good book relevant to this thread), am working on Shattered Sword, and gave my dad The Guns of August for Christmas but didn't get to it myself, all because of this thread. If I were a faster reader I'd be more hosed than a newly minted PC gamer during his first Steam sale.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 01:50
|
|
|
Squalid posted:Can you recommend any books on the subject? It's a topic I've been interested in for a while but I can never find anything in depth. This book owns.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 01:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 04:36 |
|
|
How did Martinique and French Guiana get away with declaring for Vichy unbombed?
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 02:53
|
|
