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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.
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Aug 1, 2014 03:08
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MA-Horus posted:Without hyperbole, I think I'd rather be in the middle of Cannae or Stalingrad than live in North Korea. I hope you're being facetious, on both ends of that spectrum.
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Aug 1, 2014 03:13
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MA-Horus posted:Without hyperbole, I think I'd rather be in the middle of Cannae or Stalingrad than live in North Korea. North Korea has a growing population. It isn't that bad.
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Aug 1, 2014 03:15
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Baron Porkface posted:How did Martinique and French Guiana get away with declaring for Vichy unbombed? "Sir, there is nothing worth bombing there!"
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Aug 1, 2014 08:20
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Baron Porkface posted:How did Martinique and French Guiana get away with declaring for Vichy unbombed? "Hmm, yes, let's teach them a lesson about declaring for the collaborators! Luckily, the RAF has an unlimited supply of bombers stationed in every corner of the globe."
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Aug 1, 2014 09:16
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So how effective would penal battalions be if you are trying to get rid of dissidents? Give them nothing but melee weapons and send them off to die
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Aug 1, 2014 09:29
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gyrobot posted:So how effective would penal battalions be if you are trying to get rid of dissidents? Give them nothing but melee weapons and send them off to die Just for executing them? Hilariously bad. You'd need to accompany them with reliable troops to prevent mutinies, desertions and to force them to battle. If it served as a path to clemency then that might actually motivate them a bit, but you'd have to vet them carefully - actual dissidents don't would still just defect en masse.
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Aug 1, 2014 09:41
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So, I'm reading about yet another murder trial (it may be a bad idea to heavily arm all these drunks), and the guy who collected the documents has, in his cover letter, instructions for how to hold the trial. The Hauptmann presides, he requires some officers...as well as six Gefreyter (the second-lowest enlisted rank; each one has charge over a group of five), six pikemen, and six musketeers. Everyone will be asked to give his opinion. I don't want to call this "egalitarian," since it's not based on the modern idea of equality, but everyone definitely has a place in this thing. It's very corporate, in the early modern sense, and I don't think it's any accident that Cromwell's army was lefty as hell. Check out the Putney Documents for more on that. And at least one of the Putney guys actually did have egalitarian beliefs. (Interestingly, during the Peloponnesian wars, according to Thucydides it was the Athenian navy that was full of radical democrats, not the army. The army was full of people who could afford to buy armor, but anyone could join a navy, where they learned respected skills and began--I think--to feel themselves part of a valued group of workmen.) HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Aug 1, 2014 |
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Aug 1, 2014 13:55
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gyrobot posted:So how effective would penal battalions be if you are trying to get rid of dissidents? Give them nothing but melee weapons and send them off to die If you are trying to get rid of dissidents, you put them in a prison and/or shoot them. If you are trying to get fuckups to prove that they are not fuckups, you put them in a penal unit.
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Aug 1, 2014 14:01
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gyrobot posted:So how effective would penal battalions be if you are trying to get rid of dissidents? Give them nothing but melee weapons and send them off to die Penal battalions weren't really a way of getting rid of dissidents, per se, so much as a way of attempting to get some sort of combat use out of political prisoners and criminals, who are people you probably would not want to seed the regular units of troops with. Obviously such people would not be missed if they were dead, but Germany and the USSR (despite the "Russian hordes" image) were both experiencing extreme manpower shortages during WWII which definitely was a motivating factor behind the idea of "let's give criminals and dissidents weapons" as opposed to merely imprisoning them. edit: or executing them Pornographic Memory fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Aug 1, 2014 |
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Aug 1, 2014 14:08
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Stalin seriously did not have any compunction whatsoever about taking people out back and shooting them if he decided he wanted them gone. David and Uriah this is not.
Fangz fucked around with this message at 14:25 on Aug 1, 2014 |
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Aug 1, 2014 14:23
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There was also some degree of resentment on how law abiding citizens were suffering in the front while these filthy criminals and traitors were safe in their prison cells, eating bread which there was shortage of. Finnish army also formed a penal battalion, the Independent Battalion 21, in 1941. Initially it had 550 inmate volunteers and 288 political prisoners, ie. communists and former Red Guard leaders who had been taken to 'protective custody' at the beginning of the war. The political prisoners started escaping from the unit even before it reached the front and after 80 of them had deserted or defected within the first week*, remaining political prisoners were taken away and only convicts were left. Perhaps to no surprise, men who'd killed before had no qualms about killing in war and the unit distinguished itself. Even the commander of the outfit, Jäger-Ltn.Col Nikke Pärmi, had served three years for stabbing a guy dead  *One of the deserters was communist Yrjö Leino, who jumped from the train taking the battalion to front. After the war he became the minister of interior, ironically the act that was his career's undoing also involved political prisoners: he handed over to USSR a group of 19 Russian emigrants who were sentenced to 10-25 years in gulag. Six of them died in captivity.
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Aug 1, 2014 14:45
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Nenonen posted:There was also some degree of resentment on how law abiding citizens were suffering in the front while these filthy criminals and traitors were safe in their prison cells, eating bread which there was shortage of. Finnish army also formed a penal battalion, the Independent Battalion 21, in 1941. Initially it had 550 inmate volunteers and 288 political prisoners, ie. communists and former Red Guard leaders who had been taken to 'protective custody' at the beginning of the war. The political prisoners started escaping from the unit even before it reached the front and after 80 of them had deserted or defected within the first week*, remaining political prisoners were taken away and only convicts were left. Perhaps to no surprise, men who'd killed before had no qualms about killing in war and the unit distinguished itself. Even the commander of the outfit, Jäger-Ltn.Col Nikke Pärmi, had served three years for stabbing a guy dead 
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Aug 1, 2014 15:48
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HEY GAL posted:Check out the Putney Documents for more on that. And at least one of the Putney guys actually did have egalitarian beliefs. The Putney Debates and the Levellers are a pretty interesting bunch. The egalitarianism comes at least as much from the Bible as from modern political ideas of egality, though, and has a long historical precedent - 'When Adam delved, and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?'; although the Agitators (being representatives elected by the ordinary soldiers of each regiment on those soldiers' own initiative) do sound intriguingly similar to the soldiers' Soviets of the Russian Revolution. (This is also the only period in English history when England was a Republic; these guys had an underrated influence on the American revolutionaries in the next century when they were coming up with their own ideology).
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Aug 1, 2014 19:56
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Pornographic Memory posted:Penal battalions weren't really a way of getting rid of dissidents, per se, so much as a way of attempting to get some sort of combat use out of political prisoners and criminals, who are people you probably would not want to seed the regular units of troops with. Obviously such people would not be missed if they were dead, but Germany and the USSR (despite the "Russian hordes" image) were both experiencing extreme manpower shortages during WWII which definitely was a motivating factor behind the idea of "let's give criminals and dissidents weapons" as opposed to merely imprisoning them. Makes you wonder the penal battalions didnt have a bomb vest to encourage cooperation
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Aug 1, 2014 21:32
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gyrobot posted:Makes you wonder the penal battalions didnt have a bomb vest to encourage cooperation Why waste good explosives for tank shells and bombs on political prisoners and decadents?
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Aug 1, 2014 21:58
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SeanBeansShako posted:Why waste good explosives for tank shells and bombs on political prisoners and decadents? Dissidents. Decadent is how you describe wasting the people's TNT when a single bullet would do just as well.
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Aug 1, 2014 22:07
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LordSaturn posted:Dissidents. Decadent is how you describe wasting the people's TNT when a single bullet would do just as well. I thought that was degenerates?
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Aug 1, 2014 22:14
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LordSaturn posted:Dissidents. Decadent is how you describe wasting the people's TNT when a single bullet would do just as well. 
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Aug 1, 2014 23:53
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What in the actual gently caress?
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Aug 2, 2014 05:49
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Groda posted:What in the actual gently caress? Think it's called "a joke."
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Aug 2, 2014 09:14
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HEY GAL posted:Think it's called "a joke." Historians should want to know this, right?
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Aug 2, 2014 09:49
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I am not sure I get the joke, if it's anything more than "this is exaggerated fictional propaganda" People mentioned the modern military propensity to use hugely outdated equipment a few pages back. I remember when I was enlisted that we used some devices that had designs 50+ years old (though thankfully most of them were around a more reasonable 30 or so). What's the most egregious case of outdated equipment the experts in this thread know of? I don't necessarily limit the question to modern cases, though I find it hard to imagine a greater recorded tech gap than that between the 60s and now 
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Aug 2, 2014 11:48
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tonberrytoby posted:Yes, but is it a modern joke or a cold war era joke? Is it an American joke or a Russian joke? It's from an old Russian textbook. If I had to guess then maybe the purpose was to learn to read Pravda and Izvestiya rather than Tolstoi and Dostoyevsky.
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Aug 2, 2014 12:14
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Tollymain posted:I am not sure I get the joke, if it's anything more than "this is exaggerated fictional propaganda" Maille was used for 1000+ years?
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Aug 2, 2014 12:20
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Nenonen posted:It's from an old Russian textbook. If I had to guess then maybe the purpose was to learn to read Pravda and Izvestiya rather than Tolstoi and Dostoyevsky. I should really learn not to underestimate how hamhanded people can be, shouldn't I  Rabhadh posted:Maille was used for 1000+ years? Aye, but how many of those years was it obselete?
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Aug 2, 2014 12:22
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Tollymain posted:Aye, but how many of those years was it obselete? I believe maille was more superseded than made obsolete
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Aug 2, 2014 12:27
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I for one still receive mail 
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Aug 2, 2014 12:48
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My old reserves unit uses a slightly updated version of the M2A1 105mm howitzer, which saw heavy use in WW2 and Korea. I also used Browning Hi-Power pistols manufactured in 1946. Dunno of that's outdated equipment or just the Canadian Forces Reserves being lol Oh, don't know if this counts as outdated or not, but the Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun has been in steady production and use for nearly 100 years, with some updates.
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Aug 2, 2014 13:06
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Tollymain posted:What's the most egregious case of outdated equipment the experts in this thread know of? I don't necessarily limit the question to modern cases, though I find it hard to imagine a greater recorded tech gap than that between the 60s and now  was cast in 1411 and melted down in 1787. The picture is from 1714.
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Aug 2, 2014 13:09
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Wasn't there a centuries old cannon in Istanbul that actually got fired in WWI?
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Aug 2, 2014 13:36
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Tollymain posted:I am not sure I get the joke, if it's anything more than "this is exaggerated fictional propaganda" Some Finnish sniper rifles have parts made in Czarist era.
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Aug 2, 2014 13:49
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HEY GAL posted:This gun: Yeah, but smoothbore cannon technology didn't really change all THAT much until rifling became widespread.
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Aug 2, 2014 14:06
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MA-Horus posted:Yeah, but smoothbore cannon technology didn't really change all THAT much until rifling became widespread. But you're broadly correct; even when you take rifling into account I'd call the development of artillery until, like, the late 1800s a series of developments within an existing paradigm rather than a change of paradigms. Compare the mid 1800s to World War 1, it's a different world. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 14:18
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Tollymain posted:What's the most egregious case of outdated equipment the experts in this thread know of? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oud5WPAyUm0 Ukraine in 2014: also same as Rome in 14 AD  It's a complicated question because how do you define when something becomes outdated? If it continues being used then in most cases it's because it still works and better replacements aren't around, right? Take for instance puukko, a primitive looking Finnish knife. The basic design goes back to stone age. It's a rugged survival tool for hikers, hunters, builders, soldiers. Also a weapon. It had also become quite popular in Russia, and the type of knives were called 'Finnish knife' or just finka, 'the Finn', for short. They gained notoriety in Soviet Union due to widespread criminal use, and finkas were actually banned in 1935. Just before WW2 Red Army modified the design into their standard knife NR-40. To improve its combat worth, they went on to design a Spetsnaz version that multifunctioned as a single firing gun, the NRS-2. There was only one hitch with this improvement...  The moral is, sometimes a little 'outdated' is good enough
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Aug 2, 2014 15:05
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HEY GAL posted:The really early (1400s, early 1500s) superguns stop being a thing once people figure out that the power of the gun doesn't increase in a 1:1 ratio with the increase in the amount of powder used; the carriages get better; the shape changes in the late 1700s in company with a change in the method of sighting; casting gets better--in the late 1700s, casting gets a lot better. Yeah, I used to be a cannon-cocker by trade. Compare a field-grade cannon from 1600 to one from the early ACW, and there's few differences, other than overall better casting of the gun itself and shot. You're still using wadding and ramming your projectile down the smooth barrel. That's 250 years of little innovation. Now go to World War 1, and you're using, as we would consider it, completely modern, breech-loading, striker-fired, rifled-barrel, hydraulically-recoil dampened guns. The amount of battlefield innovation between 1850 and 1914 must have been absolutely terrifying.
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Aug 2, 2014 16:32
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MA-Horus posted:Yeah, I used to be a cannon-cocker by trade. Compare a field-grade cannon from 1600 to one from the early ACW, and there's few differences, other than overall better casting of the gun itself and shot. You're still using wadding and ramming your projectile down the smooth barrel. That's 250 years of little innovation. This is still a small change, but I wanted to mention it: during the first third of the 18th century people stopped ladling the powder into the goddamned things and started using pre-packaged charges. A small change, but important for the actual people involved. Edit: One caveat. We do get better at mass production. There are more guns out there and the guns get cheaper to make. That was really important. Compare the galley (three bronze guns on the nose) to the round ship, and how many guns they have, because iron is cheaper than bronze. Edit 2: Who wants some technical jargon?  English, 1652  modern diagram of 19th century gun HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 16:49
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FAUXTON posted:I would argue that was an aspect of a full-on war and not an insurgency. Weren't the first battles against British forces a great disaster because the Continental army thought they could fight on the open battlefield? As far as I know, the American revolution only turned into a real war when the British armies were already as good as beaten. Ensign Expendable posted:Their ridiculous super tanks weren't particularly creative. The interbellum designs are where it's at! On the other hand, there were plans for a intercontinental superbomber called the Silbervogel, then there was that weird idea of strapping helicopter rotors to soldier's backpacks to create some kind of deranged jetpack. Or the type IX-B U-boat "cruiser" with as many gun turrets as torpedo tubes. Or the VS8 hydrofoil with its habit of falling from its foils if the sea even started to think about sending a few waves at it. Closing the war out with the world's first jet fighter (the Me262) was also impressive. But then all that craziness was easily topped by the British with the entire project Habbakuk. Sadly, the scale prototype of that mad ice aircraft carrier ended up on the ground of Lake Patricia in Canada after the project was cancelled. Since it was made out of some weird material made out of blocks of ice with frozen wood in it, there is presumably not much left of it by now. So yeah, there was a lot of crazy going around in WWII. 
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Aug 2, 2014 17:24
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Nenonen posted:Ukraine in 2014: also same as Rome in 14 AD By 14 AD Romans were fighting in maniples rather than phalanxes so they didn't interlock shields like that and there was several feet of space between each individual soldier. You'd have to go back to the 300's BC to see Romans fighting with a shield wall.
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Aug 2, 2014 17:32
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Libluini posted:Weren't the first battles against British forces a great disaster because the Continental army thought they could fight on the open battlefield? As far as I know, the American revolution only turned into a real war when the British armies were already as good as beaten. I can see your point, but I would argue its an overly narrow perspective on the war. We focus a lot on the major engagements of the Continental Army, but they were only a small minority. An important minority, but it misses just how important the patriot/Loyalist civil war was. Does this guerrilla conflict not count as a "real war?" And while I do agree with you that many field battles were tactical disasters for Washington and company, many of these British campaigns were short sighted and often conflicting with British government aims. The political and military strategies were not meshing well. For example, Howe bested Washington in taking Philadelphia after Brandywine, but to what end? Cornwallis achieved a great victory at Camden, but lost sight of his overall goals. Simply put, because the patriot militia was able to suppress loyalist militias, British military forces were unable to retain gains, even in regions with significant loyalist populations. Even American loyalists were often angry with British policies and should not be assumed to be willing to fight for their political beliefs.
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