Ask Us About Military History: Remove Balls To Fire Blanks

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Ask Us About Military History: Remove Balls To Fire Blanks

«‹›1137 »

Rabhadh: Aug 26, 2007

Agean90 posted:

If only we'd used these on Dresden and Tokyo instead.

You've clearly never been in Berlin for pride.

# ? Aug 14, 2014 19:37

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 27, 2024 23:40

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Pellisworth posted:

Dr. HEGEL, based on her research, asserts that being a 17th century Saxon soldier was all about dick jokes and fancy hats, while her academic arch-nemesis argues they were instead pre-occupied with personal hygiene and piety. Both are using the same or similar sets of primary sources. How can I as an independent researcher test their hypotheses empirically and falsifiably to determine who's right? I can't, because there aren't any 17th century Saxons around to observe independently. I cannot repeat their research independently to falsify their claims.

More flippantly, I know exactly what it was like to be a 17th century Saxon soldier.

10 IF ALCOHOL IS IN THE ROOM GO TO 20
20 BAD LIFE DECISIONS
30 GOTO 10

HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Aug 14, 2014

# ? Aug 14, 2014 20:03

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

JaucheCharly posted:

You know, it's weird to check back on the thread and suddenly see an episthemological slapfight.

Clearly you've never spent time with historians :haw:

HEY GAL posted:

More flippantly, I know exactly what it was like to be a 17th century Saxon soldier.

10 IF ALCOHOL IS IN THE ROOM GO TO 20
20 BAD LIFE DECISIONS
30 GOTO 10

Sounds an awful lot like grad school to me.

# ? Aug 14, 2014 20:49

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

HEY GAL posted:

More flippantly, I know exactly what it was like to be a 17th century Saxon soldier.

10 IF ALCOHOL IS IN THE ROOM GO TO 20
20 BAD LIFE DECISIONS
30 GOTO 10

Shouldn't this be more like:

10 IF ALCOHOL IS IN THE ROOM GO TO 20
20 TRY FIND ALCOHOL
30 BAD LIFE DECISIONS
40 GOTO 10

?

# ? Aug 14, 2014 20:52

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Arquinsiel posted:

Shouldn't this be more like:

10 IF ALCOHOL IS IN THE ROOM GO TO 20
20 TRY FIND ALCOHOL
30 BAD LIFE DECISIONS
40 GOTO 10

?

Let's assume as a given that an enlisted man will be able to find the alcohol.

# ? Aug 14, 2014 20:54

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

These code statements are making me cry inside.

# ? Aug 14, 2014 20:56

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Kaal posted:

These code statements are making me cry inside.

Yeah I have no idea what I'm talking about.

# ? Aug 14, 2014 20:57

Pellisworth: Jun 20, 2005

Kaal posted:

These code statements are making me cry inside.

But is computer "science" an actual science??

Edit: and I should say I don't mean to demean history or other humanities, social sciences (whatever you wanna call em), other academic disciplines. Science is a mode of inquiry and in most cases I don't think it's applicable for historians.

Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Aug 14, 2014

# ? Aug 14, 2014 20:58

Rodrigo Diaz: Apr 16, 2007; Knights who are at the wars eat their bread in sorrow;
their ease is weariness and sweat;
they have one good day after many bad

HEY GAL posted:

Yeah I have no idea what I'm talking about.

nothing new there

# ? Aug 14, 2014 21:01

Vincent Van Goatse: Nov 8, 2006; Enjoy every sandwich.; Smellrose

Rodrigo Diaz posted:

nothing new there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji-cT58rgNc

Ed McMahon, incidentally, was a Marine Corps flight instructor during WW2 and flew artillery spotter planes in Korea.

# ? Aug 14, 2014 21:06

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Can someone explain to me the importance of NCOs in an army? It was mentioned that a super lack of them was a big cause of why the WWI Tsarist army was so bad.

For that matter I don't really know all that much about the difference between an enlisted man, an NCO and an officer, period

Pellisworth posted:

But is computer "science" an actual science??

As a CS graduate I unironically get this daily from my brother, a Computer Engineering graduate.

# ? Aug 14, 2014 21:08

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Kaal posted:

These code statements are making me cry inside.

If it makes you feel any better I was just inserting another line to justify the existence of the first GOTO by giving it code to skip in the execution flow. And also guaranteeing disaster. in the finest traditions of GOTO.

# ? Aug 14, 2014 21:15

Ensign Expendable: Nov 11, 2008; Lager beer is proof that god loves us; Pillbug

Is applied science a science? Discuss.

RE: guns. Guns were pretty drat expensive for a very long time, especially pistols. As late as the mid-30s, you see various nonmilitary types saw bits off rifles or shotguns in lieu of buying a pistol, as they could not afford one.

Edit: using a GOTO properly works fine, the problem is that the kind of people that would use one don't use them properly.

Ensign Expendable fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Aug 14, 2014

# ? Aug 14, 2014 21:24

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

You'd be amazed how much it's used. I'd wager every program you're using right now (assuming an x86/x64 CISC Intel-style chip) is full of them.

The guns thing... didn't people say that about crossbows too at once stage?

# ? Aug 14, 2014 21:36

Thwomp: Apr 10, 2003; BA-DUHHH; Grimey Drawer

gradenko_2000 posted:

Can someone explain to me the importance of NCOs in an army? It was mentioned that a super lack of them was a big cause of why the WWI Tsarist army was so bad.

For that matter I don't really know all that much about the difference between an enlisted man, an NCO and an officer, period

A NCO (non-commissioned officers) is typically an experienced enlisted man given responsibility for a small sub-unit of men (think squad leaders). They went through the same boot camp as the rest of the soldiers but were marked out for being popular/a nack for leadership but they didn't get whatever is required to go through officer training. They're often a highly effective bridge between officers and the grunts.

In the Tsarist army, a lack of NCOs meant a officers were issuing orders directly to soldiers. Add this to the fact that officers came from the nobility/aristocracy who had very little actual combat experience and you end up with lots of dead Russians.

# ? Aug 14, 2014 21:39

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Ensign Expendable posted:

RE: guns. Guns were pretty drat expensive for a very long time, especially pistols. As late as the mid-30s, you see various nonmilitary types saw bits off rifles or shotguns in lieu of buying a pistol, as they could not afford one.

You'd think that, but wheellock pistols replaced crossbows in burgher weapons inventories pretty readily. They weren't cheap, but they weren't out of range of the comfortably middle class.

# ? Aug 14, 2014 21:41

bewbies: Sep 23, 2003; Fun Shoe

Tomn posted:

So, question.

Modern mythology has it that the gun bought about the death knell of the knightly, aristocratic class by allowing a half-trained peasant to regularly take on and defeat a highly elite, well-equipped and well-trained warrior. When did this view of the gun first arise and gain traction amongst society, though? Did people start seeing it that way the moment the first handgun was developed, or did they just consider it a useful tool to wage their dynastic struggles with? Was it developed in Victorian times to explain how modern progress is so much better than stinky medievalism? Was it something that only really cropped up in the 20th century to show how technology was a tool of democracy?

For that matter, is the idea fundamentally a true one - that guns directly led to the decline of the aristocracy? Given that England still has a House of Lords I'm inclined to say no, but maybe guns DID significantly reduce the relative power of aristocrats compared to their power in the Middle Ages?

The manorial system/lower level feudalism existed in large part to support the mounted heavy cavalryman (knight) and his retainers, who were the dominant force in European war for a long, long time. However, they started declining in importance well before firearms really became widespread; the longbow/crossbow and polearms were seeing to that. That being said, training bowmen or pikemen was hard, slow, and very expensive whereas guns were relatively cheap and very easy to employ so they sort of finished off the mounted knight as the decisive thing in battle.

I'd say a bigger effect of gunpowder on the fortunes of the nobility was that it essentially rendered the medieval castle utterly obsolete in a very short period of time. Knocking down even the thickest traditional castle wall was now possible with cannon, which meant that the thousands of castles all over Europe were now largely useless as points of power projection. You could certainly build fortifications that were resistant to cannon, but they were a lot more expensive and a lot harder to build, which meant really that only entities like nation-states and wealthy major cities could afford them. This, along with lots of other factors (rise of industry and merchant class, plague, better agriculture, etc etc) moved the centers of power (and population) throughout Europe from landed estates to larger cities and at the same time concentrated power more in the upper echelons of the nobility versus the more decentralized power structure of the feudal age. This in turn contributed to the rise of the nation-states and eventual empires that would dominate the modern age.

# ? Aug 14, 2014 21:46

Kemper Boyd: Aug 6, 2007; no kings, no gods, no masters but a comfy chair and no socks

bewbies posted:

The manorial system/lower level feudalism existed in large part to support the mounted heavy cavalryman (knight) and his retainers, who were the dominant force in European war for a long, long time. However, they started declining in importance well before firearms really became widespread; the longbow/crossbow and polearms were seeing to that.

One fun battle which points out the limited utility of the heavy cavalry as the decisive arm in warfare is Bannockburn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bannockburn

Bad tactics, lovely terrain and abysmal leadership turned Bannockburn from an almost sure English victory into a complete rout.

# ? Aug 14, 2014 23:01

jaegerx: Sep 10, 2012; Maybe this post will get me on your ignore list!

Kemper Boyd posted:

One fun battle which points out the limited utility of the heavy cavalry as the decisive arm in warfare is Bannockburn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bannockburn

Bad tactics, lovely terrain and abysmal leadership turned Bannockburn from an almost sure English victory into a complete rout.

Agincourt shows the uselessness of dismounted knights vs archers as well.

# ? Aug 15, 2014 00:19

Trin Tragula: Apr 22, 2005

gradenko_2000 posted:

Can someone explain to me the importance of NCOs in an army? It was mentioned that a super lack of them was a big cause of why the WWI Tsarist army was so bad.

For that matter I don't really know all that much about the difference between an enlisted man, an NCO and an officer, period

Basically: Officers decide what to do, and automatically are superior to all NCOs and private soldiers (in Britain collectively referred to as Other Ranks, "the ranks", "the men", and so on). The most green Second Lieutenant can give orders to the oldest, most flea-bitten Regimental Sergeant Major, although he often knows better than to try. Non-Commissioned Officers get told what to do, and decide how to do it and who does it. And then the private soldiers, led by their NCOs and officers together, go and do it.

An NCO enlisted as a private soldier and during his service, demonstrated the correct mix of bravery and luck to be promoted from that rank. They're an "officer" in the sense that they are in charge of people, but they didn't obtain that rank with book learning and their power derives from the Army. They didn't go to military academies, they learned their soldiering on the job. They are in charge of small groups of men and carry out simple tasks given to them by a junior officer: "attack that trench", "clear that pillbox", and so on. They are the corporals and sergeants; they are the blokes who are responsible for Actually Getting poo poo Done. It doesn't matter where the order comes from, whether it's something thought up in the middle of No Man's Land by a harassed lieutenant cowering in a shell-hole, or a carefully-designed part of a multiple-army movement decided over several months; at some point someone will have to tell a sergeant to make it happen. The sergeant is who the private looks to for his immediate instructions and general guidance on how to soldier effectively and not die.

Officers are very rarely promoted from the ranks (immediately before the war, in a good year, five senior British NCOs would be commissioned as officers). They join the Army by going to a military academy of some sort and (in theory) they learn how to be leaders and tacticians; they are then granted a commission by the King (or other head of state) and their power derives directly from that source. They have their own rank structure and role, completely separate to the NCOs' structure. The officers do the thinking so the blokes can concentrate on the shooting (this is why they're armed with pistols instead of rifles), and certainly in the period we're talking about, they are very definitely from a higher social class to the Other Ranks.

On the ground officers and NCOs both provide leadership, but in different ways. An officer will give his men a rousing speech about King and Country; a sergeant will remind them to keep their bloody heads down when they go to the latrine. Ideally, the men will look up to their officers, but form close social bonds with each other and with their NCOs. (In order to maintain the distance necessary for effective command, officers are strictly forbidden from socialising with other ranks.) Critically, officers and NCOs both must lead their men over the top, and will therefore be first into the teeth of whatever opposition might lie ahead.

The effective NCO does many useful things. Perhaps most importantly in this social context, he acts as a vital bullshit screen between the twits in command and the oafs with the rifles. He can make suggestions to his officers about the best way to proceed; and if he has fifteen years' soldiering and the lieutenant has six months, he'll often be able to spot all the practical problems with the officer's clever plan. His men will also be a lot more likely to take orders from someone they recognise as being one of their own, rather than some chinless toff who might as well be from a different planet. An army without some layer of insulation between officers and men will find it very hard to function in action; the officers on the ground will be distracted from their tactical concerns by having to control a large group of individuals, and the men will lack someone nearby who can give them clear, simple commands.

Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 01:02 on Aug 15, 2014

# ? Aug 15, 2014 00:57

Waroduce: Aug 5, 2008

mllaneza posted:

At the start of the war Britain started raising troops in the colonies, India and Australia most notably. This meant troop convoys that just had to be protected. Along with that the RN had to worry about protecting wireless transmitting stations, general commerce, and occupying German possessions in the Pacific. All of these tasks took warships; troop convoys and occupying Tsingtao had priority. To keep the RN hopping the commander of the SMS Emden, Korvettenkapit�n von M�ller, volunteered to stay behind as a commerce raider. He captured 22 merchant ships and sank a Russian light cruiser before being run down by HMAS Sydney.

"Wikipedia" posted:

When the Emden sent a landing party ashore to destroy a radio station at Port Refuge in the Keeling Islands on November 8, 1914, she was finally cornered by the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney, and was defeated by its heavier guns. M�ller, with the rest of his surviving crew, was captured and taken to Malta. A detachment of the crew which had gone ashore was missed, and escaped to Germany under the leadership of Emden's first officer Hellmuth von M�cke.

Where can I read about this?

All of it, but the bolded part must be a hell of a story

FAUXTON posted:

I would imagine there's ancient forts all over the Mideast that were used as defensive positions during one war or another. Or India/Pakistan. Or Greece/Turkey - I would wager there were tons of this kind of thing in WWI/II.

E: Aurelian walls in Rome: Built 3rd century C.E. and used as defensive works clear up into the late/mid 19th c.

This is pages back, and may have been addressed, but in the most recent conflicts in Afhanistan and Iraq, ancient forts saw battle in the early days of operations. For instance the Battle of Qala-i-Jangi*. This is the first case that popped into my head because you can read about it from a whole bunch of perspectives and it really captures every aspect of the battle from the ground up. ODA 595 published a book detailing their assistance to Dotsum in the opening days of the invasion called Horse Soldiers, its mentioned in The Only Thing Worth Dying For written by another ODA team that was with Karzai, there are a bunch of standard news reports, and Gary Bernsten mentions it in Jawbreaker, his book detailing his time as the senior CIA officer in Afghanistan, anything with John Walker Lynd in it has an account.

There are others, but none that jump to my mind.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Qala-i-Jangi

Waroduce fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Aug 15, 2014

# ? Aug 15, 2014 01:58

Vincent Van Goatse: Nov 8, 2006; Enjoy every sandwich.; Smellrose

Waroduce posted:

Where can I read about this?

All of it, but the bolded part must be a hell of a story

Von Mucke wrote a couple books after the war ended, I think there are translations up on archive.org along with hundreds of other books from that period.

# ? Aug 15, 2014 02:33

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Arquinsiel posted:

If it makes you feel any better I was just inserting another line to justify the existence of the first GOTO by giving it code to skip in the execution flow. And also guaranteeing disaster. in the finest traditions of GOTO.

I'm just pulling your chain, I saw what you were doing. That being said, as it's written the GOTO skips to the wrong line (20 instead of 30) and so it ends up doing all four lines over and over. Not that it would compile in the first place with GOTO misspelled. Sooooo .... :slick:

Kaal fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Aug 15, 2014

# ? Aug 15, 2014 02:46

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Kaal posted:

I'm just pulling your chain, I saw what you were doing. That being said, as it's written the GOTO skips to the wrong line (20 instead of 30) and so it ends up doing all four lines over and over. Not that it would compile in the first place with GOTO misspelled. Sooooo ....

I could go all "yes, disaster :smugdog:

" but I legit didn't even notice that. Not that it really makes much difference...

There's a reason I decided to go into support instead of development.

# ? Aug 15, 2014 02:49

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Arquinsiel posted:

I could go all "yes, disaster " but I legit didn't even notice that. Not that it really makes much difference...

There's a reason I decided to go into support instead of development.

Not that the repeated resolution of "BAD LIFE DECISIONS" regardless of how much or how little alcohol is found is in any way inaccurate when it comes to the enlisted soldier. :histdowns:

# ? Aug 15, 2014 02:51

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Can someone explain to me the importance of NCOs in an army? It was mentioned that a super lack of them was a big cause of why the WWI Tsarist army was so bad.For that matter I don't really know all that much about the difference between an enlisted man, an NCO and an officer, period

Other people have covered this pretty well, but I've got a couple things to add: One thing that's really great about professional NCOs is that they're typically career soldiers and so they often end up being the repositories of accrued military knowledge and experience. The NCO is the one who knows how to jerry-rig cold weather gear, remembers all the good old marching songs, and generally knows how to unfuck a situation because he's seen worse. This of course doesn't apply to all NCOs, particularly the non-professional ones that are common in Russian militaries throughout history (they often have only a couple more weeks of training than the boots they lead).

An NCO is technically enlisted, unlike an officer who is commissioned, but there's a clear distinction there and so often you'll see them referred to as the "senior enlisted" (which also helps distinguish the important sergeants from the boot-licking Corporals who might as well just be Privates - or worse, Specialists).

Also, the easiest way to remember the differences between enlisted, NCO, and officer is to look at the ideal US infantry platoon:

A "perfect" platoon is composed of 40 soldiers. It is divided into three squads of 12 enlisted men each, each led by a Sergeant (NCO). The platoon itself is led by a Lieutenant (Officer). The Lieutenant coordinates with other officers and leads the platoon as a whole. The sergeants take those commands, organizes an implementation, and directs each squad in combat. The other enlisted work together and fight the battle. This of course is a huge simplification that is never found in real life, and all units are going to have people wearing multiple hats, with a good LT leading his men in combat while simultaneously coordinating with other units, and sergeants giving and carrying out commands as appropriate. And indeed squads are in turn broke into two or three fire-teams led by junior NCOs, and the size of these subunits can vary widely depending on the situation, mode of transport, etc. But it's a basic idea.

edit: If this all makes sense to you, and you're interested, I can also talk about the mysterious Warrant Officer, which throws a wrench into this well-ordered system but also solves a tricky problem.

edit2: Oh also, officers have the hottest wives, while NCOs have the best cars. That's not to say that privates don't sometimes have awesome cars and hot wives, but rather that their inner child will invariably convert them into a fiery wreck that is shunned by God.

Kaal fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Aug 15, 2014

# ? Aug 15, 2014 03:22

Frostwerks: Sep 24, 2007; by Lowtax

Kaal posted:

Not that the repeated resolution of "BAD LIFE DECISIONS" regardless of how much or how little alcohol is found is in any way inaccurate when it comes to the enlisted soldier.

War. War never changes.

# ? Aug 15, 2014 03:22

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

Waroduce posted:

This is pages back, and may have been addressed, but in the most recent conflicts in Afhanistan and Iraq, ancient forts saw battle in the early days of operations. For instance the Battle of Qala-i-Jangi*. This is the first case that popped into my head because you can read about it from a whole bunch of perspectives and it really captures every aspect of the battle from the ground up. ODA 595 published a book detailing their assistance to Dotsum in the opening days of the invasion called Horse Soldiers, its mentioned in The Only Thing Worth Dying For written by another ODA team that was with Karzai, there are a bunch of standard news reports, and Gary Bernsten mentions it in Jawbreaker, his book detailing his time as the senior CIA officer in Afghanistan, anything with John Walker Lynd in it has an account.

There are others, but none that jump to my mind.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Qala-i-Jangi

People back in the day weren't stupid and they built their fortifications in very clever strategic locations. This means that even if the construction itself is of limited utility in a subsequent conflict (due to obsolescence of construction, deterioration, etc), the site is still very valuable. Therefore you get a lot of fighting in and around old fortifications, which isn't necessarily directly related to the utility of the fortification itself.

Of course, one could argue that the utility of a fortification is intrinsically linked to its location...

# ? Aug 15, 2014 03:25

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Kaal posted:

edit: If this all makes sense to you, and you're interested, I can also talk about the mysterious Warrant Officer, which throws a wrench into this well-ordered system but also solves a tricky problem.

It does, and you may always assume that someone is. :frogon:

# ? Aug 15, 2014 04:24

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

Kaal posted:

These code statements are making me cry inside.

code:

void
SaxonSoldierTask::Main()
{
   bool bMyHaveAlcohol = false;
   while(1)
   {
      bMyHaveAlcohol = ObtainAlcohol();
      if( bMyHaveAlcohol )
      {
         DrinkAlcohol();      // Will set bMyHaveAlcohol to false when complete.
         BadLifeDecisions();
      }

      if( Battle() )
         Fight();

      Sleep();
   }
}

PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Aug 15, 2014

# ? Aug 15, 2014 04:56

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Arquinsiel posted:

I could go all "yes, disaster " but I legit didn't even notice that. Not that it really makes much difference...

There's a reason I decided to go into support instead of development.

Support represent! :hf:

I gave up development 6 years ago and couldn't be happier.

Kaal posted:

edit: If this all makes sense to you, and you're interested, I can also talk about the mysterious Warrant Officer, which throws a wrench into this well-ordered system but also solves a tricky problem.

Yes! This is all fascinating and was a hell of a blind spot in my knowledge.

# ? Aug 15, 2014 05:42

bewbies: Sep 23, 2003; Fun Shoe

Kaal posted:

A "perfect" platoon is composed of 40 soldiers. It is divided into three squads of 12 enlisted men each, each led by a Sergeant (NCO). The platoon itself is led by a Lieutenant (Officer).

You forgot a pretty important position: the platoon sergeant. Nearly every military organization, especially tactical formations, are led by officers who are assisted by a senior NCO of some sort. At the platoon level it is the PSG, at a company it is the first sergeant, and above that the sergeants major. At lower levels they are essentially responsible for executing the daily operations of the unit, at higher levels they are "advisors" to senior officers which means they go around looking for cigarette butts and things to paint.

edit - and I should add, most of the time at the platoon level the PL essentially has no real role in operations outside of being a mouthpiece for the commander. Platoon leader is purely a developmental role (why else would you put someone with no practical experience in charge of a thing), and it is the NCOs and particularly the PSG who make sure things go.

\/\/ what the gently caress are you talking about

bewbies fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Aug 15, 2014

# ? Aug 15, 2014 05:51

Throatwarbler: Nov 17, 2008; by vyelkin

This is obviously a more complex topic than can be covered in a single comedy forums post but in order to understand the Officer/NCO system you have to remember that whole "war is politics by other means" thing and that in most societies there's a distinct gap between the ruling class and the proletariat. A competent army is nice but a politically reliable one is better. The whole incompetent officer/get-r-dun NCO thing is basically a manifestation of that. Officers first and foremost are politicians,the whole career/incentive structure is that of a politician, not some mindless technocrat or someone who is Good At Their Job. Countries that have strong middle classes, rule of law and protection for individual property rights tend to have more people who stay around long enough to become competent at their jobs but who aren't nobles and/or politicians. You see why Britain and the US are good at this while Tsarist Russia not so much.

# ? Aug 15, 2014 05:55

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Support represent! I gave up development 6 years ago and couldn't be happier.

This is pure insanity to me, random support poo poo is the worst, usually because it's always customers doing random things they don't really understand, and you have to explain why they should not do this. Then they get all huffy about it not working like they thought it would. 'What do you mean I can't use my GPS to position me inside a 2km long mountain tunnel?'. 'Why can't this terrible IMU I have determine its azimuth while bobbing around in the ocean below Antarctica?'.
:negative:

# ? Aug 15, 2014 05:55

xthetenth: Dec 30, 2012; Mario wasn't sure if this Jeb guy was a good influence on Yoshi.

Arquinsiel posted:

It does, and you may always assume that someone is.

There is a reason that whenever I don't feel I know the answer enough to effortpost I phrase my answers as questions. This should be in the OP.

# ? Aug 15, 2014 06:29

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

PittTheElder posted:

This is pure insanity to me, random support poo poo is the worst, usually because it's always customers doing random things they don't really understand, and you have to explain why they should not do this. Then they get all huffy about it not working like they thought it would. 'What do you mean I can't use my GPS to position me inside a 2km long mountain tunnel?'. 'Why can't this terrible IMU I have determine its azimuth while bobbing around in the ocean below Antarctica?'.

Well look at the example of my coding skillz above. In dev work it's me making the dumb mistakes. In support it's someone else. Do you really want to be the one to blame in any given situation?

# ? Aug 15, 2014 06:35

Hargrimm: Sep 22, 2011; W A R R E N

Arquinsiel posted:

Well look at the example of my coding skillz above. In dev work it's me making the dumb mistakes. In support it's someone else. Do you really want to be the one to blame in any given situation?

At least you can get better at development. In support, you will have stupid clients forever.

# ? Aug 15, 2014 07:54

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Kaal posted:

Not that the repeated resolution of "BAD LIFE DECISIONS" regardless of how much or how little alcohol is found is in any way inaccurate when it comes to the enlisted soldier.

So there was this pair of guys who were fighting for some reason. I have no idea why they were fighting, but anyway they were punching each other and one of them hosed his hand up. So they decided to have a duel with swords instead. Meanwhile their friends, who were acting as go-betweens, are hovering around in the background going "HOW DO WE DEAL WITH THIS THING."

"Uuh...here are the swords, but there is something wrong with them."

The dude who had hurt his hand picks one of them up and goes "There's something wrong with this! And, as everyone can clearly see, there's something wrong with my hand, too."

A delay was necessary.

During this delay, the pair of guys smoked some tobacco together (it was much more quasi-ritualistic then, kind of like smoking weed with friends is for us) and decided not to let a stupid misunderstanding ruin their friendship. They were good friends, they affirmed.

Such good friends that they went to the administration of the city where they were staying and asked a guy to include, as an addendum to the account of this fight, something about what good friends they were. A copy was duly made in the Regimental Gerichtsbuch, where it has stayed for almost 400 years.

Good life decisions sometimes.

HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Aug 15, 2014

# ? Aug 15, 2014 08:47

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Is Winston Churchill's The World Crisis worth reading with regards to WWI, for the historiography if not for the factual account?

PittTheElder posted:

This is pure insanity to me, random support poo poo is the worst, usually because it's always customers doing random things they don't really understand, and you have to explain why they should not do this. Then they get all huffy about it not working like they thought it would. 'What do you mean I can't use my GPS to position me inside a 2km long mountain tunnel?'. 'Why can't this terrible IMU I have determine its azimuth while bobbing around in the ocean below Antarctica?'.

It was kind of bad being L1/L2 support for about 18 months or so, but I managed to get an ITIL certification and used that to get away from doing direct support. Nowadays I'm doing more Problem Management, Service Management type stuff.

# ? Aug 15, 2014 09:13

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 27, 2024 23:40

Hogge Wild: Aug 21, 2012; by FactsAreUseless; Pillbug

HEY GAL posted:

So there was this pair of guys who were fighting for some reason. I have no idea why they were fighting, but anyway they were punching each other and one of them hosed his hand up. So they decided to have a duel with swords instead. Meanwhile their friends, who were acting as go-betweens, are hovering around in the background going "HOW DO WE DEAL WITH THIS THING."

"Uuh...here are the swords, but there is something wrong with them."

The dude who had hurt his hand picks one of them up and goes "There's something wrong with this! And, as everyone can clearly see, there's something wrong with my hand, too."

A delay was necessary.

During this delay, the pair of guys smoked some tobacco together (it was much more quasi-ritualistic then, kind of like smoking weed with friends is for us) and decided not to let a stupid misunderstanding ruin their friendship. They were good friends, they affirmed.

Such good friends that they went to the administration of the city where they were staying and asked a guy to include, as an addendum to the account of this fight, something about what good friends they were. Where it has stayed for almost 400 years.

Good life decisions sometimes.

How did Germans smoke it? English used pipes beacause the North Americans had taught them to smoke and Spaniards used cigars because they had learned it in the Caribbean.

Couldn't find a painting of Spaniards smoking cigars.

# ? Aug 15, 2014 09:29

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Ask Us About Military History: Remove Balls To Fire Blanks

«‹›1137 »