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Raenir Salazar posted:Why did stick grenades (the kind that the Germans and Soviets seemed to like) fall out of use and now we have these weird peanut/grapefruit shaped things? Production costs, likely. Why shove a dowel on the thing when you can just hurl it like a baseball just as far?
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Aug 5, 2014 04:34
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FAUXTON posted:Production costs, likely. Why shove a dowel on the thing when you can just hurl it like a baseball just as far? The stick lets you throw it farther but makes it more annoying to carry, and throwing range wasn't that important after everyone's standard equipment started including rifle grenades, grenade launchers, RPGs, etc.
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Aug 5, 2014 04:40
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Apparently there's a distance/accuracy payoff involved too. It's really easy to throw a stick far, but it's a hell of a lot harder to get it to go through a window a moderate distance away.
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Aug 5, 2014 04:46
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Griz posted:The stick lets you throw it farther but makes it more annoying to carry, and throwing range wasn't that important after everyone's standard equipment started including rifle grenades, grenade launchers, RPGs, etc.  I thought the difference was like 3-4 yards according to British sources
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Aug 5, 2014 04:46
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Raenir Salazar posted:The crazy thing for me is the sheer number of what appears to be shell craters. The pineapple grenades are fragmentation grenades that have bits of metal in them and not a ton of explosive charge. The first ones had an obnoxiously large fragmentation radius that was a risk to the thrower, so the charge got smaller over time. The WWI Mills bomb are apparently dangerous out to 300 feet, the modern American M67's is out to 45. Stick grenades have a big explosive charge at the head, but not much metal to fling out. The Germans invented a sleeve that would add to the fragmentation, but it wasn't standard. They had a more reasonable damage radius, and unlike fragmentation grenades, you could bundle them together 6 at a time to damage tanks and armoured vehicles. You could also theoretically throw them farther, further reducing the chance of self-injury. As AFVs improved and numerous, so did portable AT weaponry, you don't need six grenades when you have HEAT rockets. Stick grenades are a little cumbersome and awkward to open (You have to unscrew a cap and the fuse falls out from the stick), and didn't really fulfill a niche that a small fragmentation grenade didn't, so they went out the door. The Soviet stick grenade, the RGD-33, was phased out because it was too complicated and weird. The replacement grenades, the RGD-42 look like tin cans with a popsicle stick stuck in them. Edit: Also, the main stick grenade producer, Germany, was divided into four occupation zones after the war and was probably banned from making them for at least a while. Slim Jim Pickens fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 05:14
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If I rammed a T-34 into a tree (a typical forest tree, not some humonguous sequoia), would it stop me?
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Aug 5, 2014 12:48
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Raenir Salazar posted:The crazy thing for me is the sheer number of what appears to be shell craters.  4.5 million shells over 2 weeks before the battle even started.
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Aug 5, 2014 13:25
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How awkward was the RGD-33 by the way? I remember it had a very awkward animation in some of the games it make an appearince. Can somebody do a break down post about it?
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Aug 5, 2014 13:53
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Lichtenstein posted:If I rammed a T-34 into a tree (a typical forest tree, not some humonguous sequoia), would it stop me? It would depend on the tree(how big, what kind, and ground composition) and the mass/velocity of your tank. In general, no. A tree isn't going to stop a tank.
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Aug 5, 2014 16:35
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uPen posted:
Jesus christ, that really puts things into perspective SeanBeansShako posted:How awkward was the RGD-33 by the way? I remember it had a very awkward animation in some of the games it make an appearince. Can somebody do a break down post about it? "Before use, a locking catch on the handle must be released and a fuse, lasting an average of 4 seconds, was inserted into the top of the can. A good throw could send the grenade 30 to 40 metres. Upon detonation the shells fragment in rectangular, thin fragments, which, along with the casing and detonator fragments, deccelerate rapidly in air. Due to the fragments rapid loss of velocity the kill radius is small, making this grenade an "offensive" type. The fragmentation kill radius was approximately 15 metres with the sleeve and 10 metres without." Lot of work for little payoff, not to mention the struggle of being in the middle of a fight trying to arm this thing. Certainly not the simple tug pin and toss pineapple SocketWrench fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 16:42
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I'm a nuclear war nerd, but does anyone have any declassified plans or at least a general idea of either what the US was targetting or the USSR, or their general preparedness plans?
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Aug 5, 2014 16:46
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Top Hats Monthly posted:I'm a nuclear war nerd, but does anyone have any declassified plans or at least a general idea of either what the US was targetting or the USSR, or their general preparedness plans? IIRC, This is from a mid-late eighties FEMA brochure. 
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Aug 5, 2014 17:42
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:The pineapple grenades are fragmentation grenades that have bits of metal in them and not a ton of explosive charge. The first ones had an obnoxiously large fragmentation radius that was a risk to the thrower, so the charge got smaller over time. The WWI Mills bomb are apparently dangerous out to 300 feet, the modern American M67's is out to 45. The Mills bomb is an example of a defensive hand grenade: one best used to clear the immediate vicinity of your trench. You have good cover but they don't, so shrapnel works to your benefit. Stick grenades on the other hand were more of an offensive hand grenade, and for such purpose a grenade which you can throw a long range to reach the enemy trench but which doesn't fling deadly shrapnel back to you works the best. Stick grenade's advantage shows particularly well when lying prone without wanting to rise up, like you would be when assaulting an enemy trench or machinegun nest. It just turns out that carrying a stick grenade that weighs twice as much and takes three times much space as an egg grenade (not to mention production cost) might make sense in some situations but generally it's better to have twice as many grenades with slightly less range.
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Aug 5, 2014 17:48
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Lichtenstein posted:If I rammed a T-34 into a tree (a typical forest tree, not some humonguous sequoia), would it stop me? You might bend the gun barrel, which is why ramming is performed with the gun barrel up (or at least elevated and to the side in an emergency). If you were going fast enough, the crew wouldn't be very happy, but a typical tree can't stop a tank. Reconnaissance reports for armoured units actually include the diameter of the typical tree to see if you can drive straight through a forest without any of this pesky "roads" business. Edit: video. Those trees don't do so well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb8PQ3bkfC8&t=240s Ensign Expendable fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 18:12
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Yeah, and the advent of rifle grenades/grenade launchers like the m79/m203 kinda did away with the need for a pitcher's arm. Fun grenade fact; LT Buck Compton of Easy Company fame (Band of Brothers) used to play for the UCLA baseball team. During the assault on Brecourt Manor (where they took out the guns shelling the landing beaches on D-Day) he beaned a running German in the head with a grenade...as it exploded.
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Aug 5, 2014 18:14
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MrYenko posted:IIRC, This is from a mid-late eighties FEMA brochure. There was a post from another forum that said something along these lines regarding England's targeting plans; basically the Soviets had somehow managed to entirely neutralize the British nuclear thread entirely through the single ABM battery outside Moscow and some other hypothetical capabilities. Fake Edit, found it after 5 minutes: Irbis from Stardestroyer.net posted:The Moscow ABM system was far from being marginal. It was (and remains) a very important component.
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Aug 5, 2014 18:15
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MrYenko posted:IIRC, This is from a mid-late eighties FEMA brochure. Glad to know that in case of nuclear exchanged, I'm not gonna have even a slight survival chance past the opening shots[In Atlanta]. Whats that giant cluster in North Dakota for? Missile silos? Why does the Mexican border get pasted in Texas?
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Aug 5, 2014 18:16
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MrYenko posted:IIRC, This is from a mid-late eighties FEMA brochure. Well at least my proximity to Ingalls and Keesler would ensure my immediate vaporization.
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Aug 5, 2014 18:18
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MrYenko posted:IIRC, This is from a mid-late eighties FEMA brochure. I'm curious as to why the 500 weapon exchange ignores the missile silos covered in the 2000 weapon strike. The only thing I can think of is that a 500 warhead exchange is meant to kill as many civilians as possible but in a strike 1/4 the size of the other seems to indicate that it would be a limited attack. e: mostly asking because I'm apparently in a target for the 500 strike but not at all for the 2000.
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Aug 5, 2014 18:30
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MA-Horus posted:Yeah, and the advent of rifle grenades/grenade launchers like the m79/m203 kinda did away with the need for a pitcher's arm. The best part of that battle was the guy who decided to climb a tree and decided afterwards never to do that again.
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Aug 5, 2014 18:32
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Raskolnikov38 posted:I'm curious as to why the 500 weapon exchange ignores the missile silos covered in the 2000 weapon strike. The only thing I can think of is that a 500 warhead exchange is meant to kill as many civilians as possible but in a strike 1/4 the size of the other seems to indicate that it would be a limited attack. Probably because the nature of the 2000 warhead strike would be a first strike. The goal would be to minimize the second strike capability of the US. A limited 500 warhead engagement would either be a second, retaliatory strike by the USSR -or- a first step nuclear engagement. It's nature in the first case is to do as much damage with the expected remaining Soviet nuclear arms. The second case is to cause as much damage on the civilian population as possible to force a quick end.
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Aug 5, 2014 18:35
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MA-Horus posted:Yeah, and the advent of rifle grenades/grenade launchers like the m79/m203 kinda did away with the need for a pitcher's arm. 
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Aug 5, 2014 18:38
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Two grenade stories from when I was obsessed with the Pacific island fighting: One marine talked about the time he and some buddies were trapped behind a wall, unable to go over it because of machine gun fire. The Japanese began tossing grenades over. One of his buddies had been a shortstop in the Cub's minor league system. He began scooping them up like grounders and throwing them back, until the seventh or eighth went off in his hand. Another Marine, listing the advantages they had over the Japanese, specifically mentioned stronger throwing arms.
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Aug 5, 2014 18:47
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MA-Horus posted:Yeah, and the advent of rifle grenades/grenade launchers like the m79/m203 kinda did away with the need for a pitcher's arm. On the same team as Jackie Robinson, too. And he played football in the Rose Bowl. After the war he turned down a minor league baseball contract and became an LA cop, and then a detective, while getting his law degree at night, and then became a deputy DA and then chief DA. He's the guy who prosecuted Sirhan Sirhan. Then Ronald Reagan appointed him as a state judge.  Buck by Phanatic, on FlickrHe was also a really nice guy.
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Aug 5, 2014 18:49
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Raskolnikov38 posted:I'm curious as to why the 500 weapon exchange ignores the missile silos covered in the 2000 weapon strike. The only thing I can think of is that a 500 warhead exchange is meant to kill as many civilians as possible but in a strike 1/4 the size of the other seems to indicate that it would be a limited attack. This is an example of counter-force vs counter-value targeting, an ongoing argument in nuclear weapons policy. Traditional nuclear doctrine in the US and USSR has been to strike military targets (air bases, missile silos, etc.) to minimize the opposing side's ability to attack. However, shelters, ABM defenses, and hardened silos require many warheads to do this effectively, solid-fueled ICBMs can launch before your missiles get there, and SLBMs may make it impossible to neutralize the enemy's ability to counter-attack. Somebody figured out that if you targeted population centers you could use many fewer warheads (and have less nuclear fallout, etc.) The ethics of targeting civilians in a war when attacking military targets is likely to cause more civilian casualties remains under debate. in a well actually fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 18:50
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BurningStone posted:Two grenade stories from when I was obsessed with the Pacific island fighting: Although the Japanese also had a strong baseball presence themselves so this assumption I imagine could backfire eventually.. 
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Aug 5, 2014 18:50
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MrYenko posted:IIRC, This is from a mid-late eighties FEMA brochure. What a rip off, my teachers told me that my town was important enough to get nuked. I would be hosed since it looks like Amherst is important enough to target and that's only like 20 miles south of me, but it's not the same as facing a nuclear fireball head on. And apparently Burlington is important enough to wipe off the face of the Earth? Never guessed that the Soviets hated hippies that much.
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Aug 5, 2014 18:53
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PCjr sidecar posted:This is an example of counter-force vs counter-value targeting, an ongoing argument in nuclear weapons policy. Traditional nuclear doctrine in the US and USSR has been to strike military targets (air bases, missile silos, etc.) to minimize the opposing side's ability to attack. However, shelters, ABM defenses, and hardened silos require many warheads to do this effectively, solid-fueled ICBMs can launch before your missiles get there, and SLBMs may make it impossible to neutralize the enemy's ability to counter-attack. Somebody figured out that if you targeted population centers you could use many fewer warheads (and have less nuclear fallout, etc.) The ethics of targeting civilians in a war when attacking military targets is likely to cause more civilian casualties remains under debate. This. The 2000 warhead scenario is a first strike against military targets. The 500 warhead scenario is the opposite sides last-gasp, likely delivered by SLBMs, and whatever remains of the rest of their forces. It's also a good demonstration of MAD: Even after suffering massive losses to nuclear forces, the defensive side of the conflict could still ensure that it would be a Pyrrhic victory, at best. Any strikes on US missile fields would be doubly destructive, because it is widely believed that Soviet weapons would be fused to detonate at (or below) ground level, to kill the hardened facilities, which is basically the recipe for massive amounts of radioactive fallout. A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:03
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Raenir Salazar posted:Although the Japanese also had a strong baseball presence themselves so this assumption I imagine could backfire eventually.. Um, you do realize why the Japanese follow baseball today, right?
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Aug 5, 2014 19:03
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Speaking of stick grenades, this dude has two or three but that's not the reason I'm posting this photo: Chinese militia, 1945. A close observer will notice that the serpentine is empty, which is of course the smart thing to do until just before you fight. The muzzle's cut off in this photo, but he may have tied his match around it. Or it's tied around the wrist of his off hand, or in any one of a dozen other possible locations.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:06
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Weren't repeating crossbows still in use at that time in China? Or am I misremembering. It was definitely strikingly late though.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:21
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HEY GAL posted:Speaking of stick grenades, this dude has two or three but that's not the reason I'm posting this photo: Do you think he's jealous of the guy with the Tommy gun right in front of him, or does the fact he can make his own ammo trump small things like "rate of fire" and "magazine capacity"?
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Aug 5, 2014 19:23
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Cyrano4747 posted:Um, you do realize why the Japanese follow baseball today, right? Because missionaries brought it over in the late 19th century, and it became a popular university sport in the early 20th with professional leagues by the 1930's?
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Aug 5, 2014 19:25
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Koramei posted:Weren't repeating crossbows still in use at that time in China? Or am I misremembering. It was definitely strikingly late though. It tends to get brought up that they still used repeating crossbows but the only repeating crossbows I've ever seen are those incredibly crappy ones that'd need to be poison-tipped to cause any appreciable amount of harm. On that note, does anyone know anything about Chinese repeating crossbows?
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Aug 5, 2014 19:29
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Don Gato posted:
Air force has some stuff at the airport there.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:31
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PCjr sidecar posted:This is an example of counter-force vs counter-value targeting, an ongoing argument in nuclear weapons policy. I thought that as well, but checking the map closer I see a lot of countervalue targets in the 2000-warhead scenario as well. Granted, there are military targets there as well, but it's still hitting every population center east of the Mississippi. I don't think it's a clear counterforce vs. countervalue split.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:32
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P-Mack posted:Because missionaries brought it over in the late 19th century, and it became a popular university sport in the early 20th with professional leagues by the 1930's? huh, I'll be damned. I was under the impression that it was introduced post-war. Color me corrected.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:41
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Argas posted:It tends to get brought up that they still used repeating crossbows but the only repeating crossbows I've ever seen are those incredibly crappy ones that'd need to be poison-tipped to cause any appreciable amount of harm. On that note, does anyone know anything about Chinese repeating crossbows? They tend to get hyped a lot on television but I'm not aware of any military use of the repeating crossbow.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:43
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Don Gato posted:Do you think he's jealous of the guy with the Tommy gun right in front of him, or does the fact he can make his own ammo trump small things like "rate of fire" and "magazine capacity"? Also, whenever the musketeers next to me fire I count the misfires: the gun'll fail to go off two or three times out of every ten for...some loving reason. And yeah, the thing is slow. That too.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:45
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MrYenko posted:IIRC, This is from a mid-late eighties FEMA brochure. Nice to see the Ruskies would take the time to nuke Lafayette, Indiana of all places.
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