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MA-Horus
Dec 3, 2006

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.

bewbies posted:

German intelligence was consistently atrocious throughout the WAR

Had to correct this for you. The German intelligence services were absolutely useless throughout the entire duration of the conflict. Almost laughably so. They were duped easier than a 5 year old.

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Libluini
May 18, 2012

I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...
Grimey Drawer

MA-Horus posted:

Had to correct this for you. The German intelligence services were absolutely useless throughout the entire duration of the conflict. Almost laughably so. They were duped easier than a 5 year old.

The new BND founded after the war became a laughing stock in the beginning because the bureau didn't even had the funds for properly clothing its agents.

There was some running joke in the 50s about how easily you could detect German secret agents -just look out for the people clothed in 100% secondhand-clothing. And thus the proud tradition of useless German intelligence services was retained. :v:

CoolCab
Apr 17, 2005

glem

MA-Horus posted:

Had to correct this for you. The German intelligence services were absolutely useless throughout the entire duration of the conflict. Almost laughably so. They were duped easier than a 5 year old.

Oh boy, a chance to talk about the gooniest guy in the whole drat war, Garbo! He one day decided he would become a English double agent against the Nazis, despite 1)never having been to the United Kingdom, 2) the English intelligence wanting absolutely nothing to do with him and 3) not knowing anything about England. He cobbled together "intelligence reports" which he generated with information he got at his local library and from filmstrips, and his top level intel included: fares and expenses he got from an old train guide, not knowing how to add the pre-decimal currency together, (meaning he couldn't add up all his expense reports), and referring to a Glasgow agent as someone who "would do anything for a litre of wine". Based on these reports, German intelligence initially gave his "spy network" 600 pounds and eventually stopped bothering to land agents in England; after all, they had so many agents already (!) By the end of the war, he was integrated into MI5 and his network of at-it's-peak 27 completely fictitious spies had drained the Nazis of (US) $340,000. In WW2 money.

It cannot be overstated how bad they were at this.

Raskolnikov38
Mar 3, 2007

We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold
Well considering that one intelligence branch spent most of its existence trying to kill Hitler, the results really aren't too surprising. :v:

Raskolnikov38 fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Nov 1, 2014

wdarkk
Oct 26, 2007

Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten
Garbo got an Iron Cross for his "efforts".

Vincent Van Goatse
Nov 8, 2006

Enjoy every sandwich.

Smellrose

wdarkk posted:

Garbo got an Iron Cross for his "efforts".

And Kim Philby got an OBE.

Tevery Best
Oct 11, 2013

Hewlo Furriend

Libluini posted:

The new BND founded after the war became a laughing stock in the beginning because the bureau didn't even had the funds for properly clothing its agents.

There was some running joke in the 50s about how easily you could detect German secret agents -just look out for the people clothed in 100% secondhand-clothing. And thus the proud tradition of useless German intelligence services was retained. :v:

This is doubly hilarious in contrast with the East German HVA, which was pretty good, but suffered from defectors, who would be invariably shocked as soon as they got to broker an extraction from the BND.

Schenck v. U.S.
Sep 8, 2010

ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:

Someone mentioned Michael Wittmann earlier. Dude was a reckless clown who got preposterously lucky one time, then got his men massacred a short time later because, as I said, he was a reckless clown.

Can you or somebody else go over how he died? I looked it up but I'm not totally clear on what happened. What I got out of it is he led a company of Tigers in a frontal assault on a large Anglo-Canadian armored unit dug in along a ridgeline, and he got lit up and killed simultaneously by about a dozen tanks from three different regiments. So all his men died accomplishing nothing at all.

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

EvanSchenck posted:

Can you or somebody else go over how he died? I looked it up but I'm not totally clear on what happened. What I got out of it is he led a company of Tigers in a frontal assault on a large Anglo-Canadian armored unit dug in along a ridgeline, and he got lit up and killed simultaneously by about a dozen tanks from three different regiments. So all his men died accomplishing nothing at all.

Long story short, when a half dozen groups of soldiers from totally different military arms of your opponent all have plausible claims to have killed you, you done hosed up.

PittTheElder
Feb 13, 2012

:geno: Yes, it's like a lava lamp.


How are things on the French and Belgian sectors of the line in the run up to Ypres? Your blog seems to have a pretty Anglocentric viewpoint (which is totally understandable), but it makes it sound like the French and Belgians have their poo poo totally figured out, which I imagine isn't really the case in the vicinity of Ypres. Although things probably have gotten much easier for the Belgians of late.

Are German efforts in the west more or less completely focused on Ypres? Is there action still going on near Vurdun?

Tomn
Aug 23, 2007

And the angel said unto him
"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself."
But lo he could not. For the angel was hitting him with his own hands
Actually side question about WWI chat:

The popular image of WWI is all about the futile trench assaults, of course. Hordes of men going over the top, getting cut down by machine-guns and massed rifles, hung up on barbed wire, blown apart by mortars, etc. etc., only to be left with far fewer men than they started with trailing back to their trenches. But with all of that said, what exactly does a SUCCESSFUL trench attack look like? Is it simply a matter (at first, at least) of having so many men that losing half of the assault force still allows you to outnumber the trench defenders when you get in close? Are they supposed to get in close enough that the trenches don't provide significant cover and they can start firing at point-blank range, or do they just forgo shooting entirely and go in for hand-to-hand combat with bayonets, pistols, and shovels? If the latter, did anyone ever consider formally equipping the men with swords or the like for trench warfare?

Basically in general I don't really have a good mental picture on a trench assault that actually succeeds, so anything to help flesh that out would be great.

Deteriorata
Feb 6, 2005

Tomn posted:

Actually side question about WWI chat:

The popular image of WWI is all about the futile trench assaults, of course. Hordes of men going over the top, getting cut down by machine-guns and massed rifles, hung up on barbed wire, blown apart by mortars, etc. etc., only to be left with far fewer men than they started with trailing back to their trenches. But with all of that said, what exactly does a SUCCESSFUL trench attack look like? Is it simply a matter (at first, at least) of having so many men that losing half of the assault force still allows you to outnumber the trench defenders when you get in close? Are they supposed to get in close enough that the trenches don't provide significant cover and they can start firing at point-blank range, or do they just forgo shooting entirely and go in for hand-to-hand combat with bayonets, pistols, and shovels? If the latter, did anyone ever consider formally equipping the men with swords or the like for trench warfare?

Basically in general I don't really have a good mental picture on a trench assault that actually succeeds, so anything to help flesh that out would be great.

My understanding is that the main intent was to breach the trench at a weak point, then pour men in at the gap and run down the trench shooting and bayoneting any enemy left in it. There was no need for swords, as the purpose of a bayonet is to turn the gun into a sword.

So if you survived the artillery and machine guns, you could die fighting in brutal, grisly hand-to-hand combat.

CoolCab
Apr 17, 2005

glem

Tomn posted:

Actually side question about WWI chat:

The popular image of WWI is all about the futile trench assaults, of course. Hordes of men going over the top, getting cut down by machine-guns and massed rifles, hung up on barbed wire, blown apart by mortars, etc. etc., only to be left with far fewer men than they started with trailing back to their trenches. But with all of that said, what exactly does a SUCCESSFUL trench attack look like? Is it simply a matter (at first, at least) of having so many men that losing half of the assault force still allows you to outnumber the trench defenders when you get in close? Are they supposed to get in close enough that the trenches don't provide significant cover and they can start firing at point-blank range, or do they just forgo shooting entirely and go in for hand-to-hand combat with bayonets, pistols, and shovels? If the latter, did anyone ever consider formally equipping the men with swords or the like for trench warfare?

Basically in general I don't really have a good mental picture on a trench assault that actually succeeds, so anything to help flesh that out would be great.

Forces all over got better at it as time progressed. Creeping barrage of artillery to get the enemy away from their guns and/or exploded, as close as you safely can behind it send in troops at specific points in the line with (iirc) for purpose weapons, like... SMGs I want to say? Time it perfectly and you wind up with enough localized superiority to break through.

Agean90
Jun 28, 2008


Shotguns too. I vaguely remember one anecdote that had Germans threatening to execute any soldier they captured armed with it.

gohuskies
Oct 23, 2010

I spend a lot of time making posts to justify why I'm not a self centered shithead that just wants to act like COVID isn't a thing.

Tomn posted:

Actually side question about WWI chat:

The popular image of WWI is all about the futile trench assaults, of course. Hordes of men going over the top, getting cut down by machine-guns and massed rifles, hung up on barbed wire, blown apart by mortars, etc. etc., only to be left with far fewer men than they started with trailing back to their trenches. But with all of that said, what exactly does a SUCCESSFUL trench attack look like? Is it simply a matter (at first, at least) of having so many men that losing half of the assault force still allows you to outnumber the trench defenders when you get in close? Are they supposed to get in close enough that the trenches don't provide significant cover and they can start firing at point-blank range, or do they just forgo shooting entirely and go in for hand-to-hand combat with bayonets, pistols, and shovels? If the latter, did anyone ever consider formally equipping the men with swords or the like for trench warfare?

Basically in general I don't really have a good mental picture on a trench assault that actually succeeds, so anything to help flesh that out would be great.

The problem with early assaults is that they didn't have infantry/artillery timing worked out. The artillery would come in and hit the enemy trench, and all the enemy would hide as deep underground as they could get (pretty far underground in some cases). Then the artillery would lift and the infantry would go over the top just as the enemy reman their positions in the trench. Attackers caught in the open, no good. They figured out they needed to start the infantry assault while the artillery was still coming down and it was better to lose some guys in front to friendly fire than to be caught into the open. The infantry follow the artillery as close as they can, and they attack the trench with grenades. Some of the grenadiers don't even have rifles - just a bag of grenades and one in each hand, ready to throw. If you time it right, you catch the enemy coming out of the dugouts and seize their first line trench. Then you have to hold it from counterattack coming up from the enemy's second line through communication trenches, and coming from the side if your neighboring units failed in their attacks. Hopefully you can bring up some light machine guns to help defend against the counterattacks.

I highly recommend Battle Tactics of the Western Front that lays out in detail exactly how artillery, infantry, engineers and tanks operated at the nitty-gritty tactical level, and how it changed as the armies learned and technology advanced.

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.

Agean90 posted:

Shotguns too. I vaguely remember one anecdote that had Germans threatening to execute any soldier they captured armed with it.

They considered it an inhumane weapon, since it is extremely difficult to treat shotgun wounds (the pellets spread over a wide area and remain within the target rather than passing through it - sepsis is virtually guaranteed without massive amounts of antibiotics and major surgery probably resulting in amputation). It is the same objection proffered against hollow-point bullets or chemical gas: The weapon does disproportionate damage to the victim, which is not justified by the military need to incapacitate or kill the enemy.

Schenck v. U.S.
Sep 8, 2010

Tomn posted:

But with all of that said, what exactly does a SUCCESSFUL trench attack look like? Is it simply a matter (at first, at least) of having so many men that losing half of the assault force still allows you to outnumber the trench defenders when you get in close? Are they supposed to get in close enough that the trenches don't provide significant cover and they can start firing at point-blank range, or do they just forgo shooting entirely and go in for hand-to-hand combat with bayonets, pistols, and shovels? If the latter, did anyone ever consider formally equipping the men with swords or the like for trench warfare?

No, a sword probably would have been too cumbersome and in any case the skills for using one effectively were extremely rare in the 20th century. I have a book of military anecdotes and one of them is a fun story from Bernard Montgomery, who recalls leading an assault with a saber early in the war. He found himself face-to-face with a German who raised his rifle to fire, and Montgomery realized he actually had no idea how to use a saber for anything except parade drills so he just ran up and kicked the guy in the stomach, and took him prisoner. The main weapons for hand-to-hand fighting were bayonets, knives, and entrenching spades.

quote:

Basically in general I don't really have a good mental picture on a trench assault that actually succeeds, so anything to help flesh that out would be great.

The first efficient method for breaching trenches was infiltration tactics, also known as stormtrooper tactics. Rather than using a creeping barrage or extended artillery preparation against enemy positions, the enemy would be targeted with a short, intense artillery bombardment to suppress them, cut their telegraph wires, and break up their barbed wire entanglements. During this time, small units of picked infantrymen, or stormtroopers, would use the cover of the bombardment to close to jumping-off positions near the enemy trench, cutting their way through any obstacles that survived the bombardment. These soldiers would maneuver in small units, taking care to remain in cover and unseen, rather than in large groups that could be more easily spotted and mowed down by machineguns. The bombardment would stop just as these units mounted their attack, using light machineguns and hand grenades to suppress the enemy and enter their trench. It wasn't really a good idea to stand over the trench and try to fire into it, because they were dug in a zig-zag fashion so that only a short length of trench could be taken under enfilading fire from any particular position. Also, there would secondary lines of fortification behind the first one that could put attack troops under fire, so it was important to get in the trench and among the enemy soldiers.

The zig-zag construction of the trench meant that taking a trench involved fighting at extremely short range and repeatedly turning corners. There were also a lot of dugout shelters that had to be cleared. The primary weapon for clearing trenches was the hand grenade, because it could be tossed around corners and into shelters without exposing the thrower, and because it could kill whole groups of clustered soldiers at a time. Since the standard infantry weapon of the time, the bolt-action rifle, was long, cumbersome, and had a relatively slow rate of fire, it wasn't ideally suited to close combat. Hand-to-hand weapons like the bayonet, trench knives, or entrenching shovels were heavily used. Pistols weren't in common issue but could actually be quite useful because of the extreme short range of combat. American assault troops were noted for using pump-action shotguns. Flamethrowers were also used for trench-clearing but mainly a psychological weapon, because once the enemy came within range of a flamethrower they would generally break and flee. They could also clear a dugout in a single burst.

So basically, you would use the rifle to shoot when possible, throw handgrenades everywhere, use pistols or shotguns if you had them (you most likely didn't), and when necessary use bayonets, knives, shovels, rifle butts, or anything else that came to hand.

Agean90 posted:

Shotguns too. I vaguely remember one anecdote that had Germans threatening to execute any soldier they captured armed with it.

Shotguns hadn't really been used in any significant numbers until the AEF came over, in spite of their obvious suitability for close combat. I don't know a lot about the topic but I think pump-action shotguns were much more popular in the USA than anywhere else, and European hunters mostly used break-action shotguns that had limited capacity and were much less useful for fighting purposes. Germany made a diplomatic protest against the American use of shotguns on the grounds that buckshot was banned by the Hague Convention as a needlessly destructive ammunition, like dum-dum bullets. It would also appear that they made the threat you're referencing, but never acted on it.

Raskolnikov38
Mar 3, 2007

We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

EvanSchenck posted:

Can you or somebody else go over how he died? I looked it up but I'm not totally clear on what happened. What I got out of it is he led a company of Tigers in a frontal assault on a large Anglo-Canadian armored unit dug in along a ridgeline, and he got lit up and killed simultaneously by about a dozen tanks from three different regiments. So all his men died accomplishing nothing at all.

I can't recall the details of the units he charged into, but what prompted the suicide charge was a plane dropping a marker pretty much on top of his group of tanks. Realizing bombers would be there in minutes, he lead the groups of tanks in a forward charge to escape the target zone and hopefully dash through a weak line. Unfortunately (for the krauts) the line proved to be several well laid Sherman Fireflies that made quick work of him.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
Speaking of military shotgun use, I've read in a couple of sources that military use of shotguns is pretty much a US-exclusive thing. Anyone know why the US would use them but no one else usually?

HEY GUNS
Oct 11, 2012

FOPTIMUS PRIME
So, you know how some ethnic groups are supposed to have a billion words for different types of ice, or gun, or something? This week I've found references to:
  • Lauffgeldt, "travel money." You get it when you sign up but before you get there
  • Liefergeldt, "delivery money," a bonus for showing up to get mustered (it says so much about these people that you're basically supposed to tip people who said they'd show up somewhere for keeping their word)
  • Monatssoldt, "monthly wages."
  • Wartegeldt, "waiting money." Retainer. (I've read it in the context of engineers and Landesdefension commanders when they're given a small fee to just hang around. When they take the field, the Wartegeldt stops and they begin to receive Monatssoldt.)
  • Lehne. This one's weird; it means "feudal beneficence," and is mentioned in the same phrases as Liefergeldt but may or may not be synonymous with it. Right now I'm thinking it functions like "taking the king's shilling" is supposed to for the later English--it is money, but it's also the sign of the bond between you and (the person who is now) your overlord.

    Edit: Also,
  • Verpflegung. It means "board," then and now. The amount of money that your colonel has told his employer is necessary to feed you for a month. If he's not selling you food and supplies, which happens a lot, this amount will hopefully be reimbursed to him so he can reimburse the people you live with. Is this actually the amount your upkeep costs? Will he ever get it? And if he gets it, will they? :iiam:

HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Nov 1, 2014

Trin Tragula
Apr 22, 2005

100 Years Ago

The Germans decide that the focus of their offensive needs to be transferred south; the weight of action today is aimed at Wytschaete and Messines. More horrendous casualties, more battered battalions being nearly destroyed, more sections of line being held together with hairy string and foul language. It's interesting how much of a pass the German tactics here get, compared to, say, how vilified the decision to walk into Joffre's trap at the Marne is; if only they'd picked a point and stuck to it, they'd surely have broken through somewhere by now, but they keep on switching focus.

It's also a busy day at sea; Admiral von Spee's band of merry German refugees (last seen failing to rob Papeete) arrives off the Chilean coast to find the Royal Navy waiting for him near the port of Coronel. The result is apparently the first British defeat in a sea-battle for just over a century, since the time of Napoleon, and when news of it arrives back at the Admiralty it's surely going to go down like a cup of cold sick. We've also got another fascinating Spectator editorial; they're making predictions galore this week.

PittTheElder posted:

How are things on the French and Belgian sectors of the line in the run up to Ypres? Your blog seems to have a pretty Anglocentric viewpoint (which is totally understandable), but it makes it sound like the French and Belgians have their poo poo totally figured out, which I imagine isn't really the case in the vicinity of Ypres. Although things probably have gotten much easier for the Belgians of late.

Are German efforts in the west more or less completely focused on Ypres? Is there action still going on near Verdun?

There's artillery exchanges going on all along the rest of the front, a few enterprising local French commanders are ordering local offensives with limited objectives (their main achievement being a slight decrease in stocks of German ammunition), and there's sporadic and mostly ineffective attacks at St Mihiel even though the period known as "Battle of Flirey" is over, but for the most part the French and Germans are both throwing all their spare men at Flanders right now. There's plenty of times where I get disappointed at how Anglo-centric I'm being forced to be, but this isn't one of them; it's a rather Anglo-centric moment of the war.

The Yser is relatively calm now; as soon as the floods became obvious, the Germans began switching men south to go after Ypres. The line between Dixmude and Pilckem is being strongly held also; the Franco-Belgian forces are in much better shape than the BEF is, and are occupying much better trenches in some strength. Ypres and Messines are by far the more appealing target for offensives.

Schenck v. U.S.
Sep 8, 2010

Cythereal posted:

Speaking of military shotgun use, I've read in a couple of sources that military use of shotguns is pretty much a US-exclusive thing. Anyone know why the US would use them but no one else usually?

Are you asking about current practice? Currently most armed forces use shotguns for specific limited roles, and the US is not exceptional in that regard. Combat shotguns are useful mainly because they can fire different types of specialized ammunition, like less-lethal loads for crowd control or breaching ammunition for busting locks and blowing the hinges off doors. For offensive purposes they have a very short effective range relative to other long arms, something like 50-70 yards with buckshot and 100 or so with slugs, as against 300+ meters for an assault rifle. Within that range they're very effective, with the proviso that most types of shotgun ammunition have poor performance against body armor. The upshot is that they're used pretty rarely, but to that extent they are issued by any number of different countries' armed forces.

Libluini
May 18, 2012

I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...
Grimey Drawer

Trin Tragula posted:

100 Years Ago
It's also a busy day at sea; Admiral von Spee's band of merry German refugees (last seen failing to rob Papeete) arrives off the Chilean coast to find the Royal Navy waiting for him near the port of Coronel. The result is apparently the first British defeat in a sea-battle for just over a century, since the time of Napoleon, and when news of it arrives back at the Admiralty it's surely going to go down like a cup of cold sick. We've also got another fascinating Spectator editorial; they're making predictions galore this week.

Reading about the successes of the German navies in WW1 and WW2 it always seemed funny to me how Germany, as a land power, was the first power to defeat the Royal Navy at sea in a century.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

EvanSchenck posted:

Are you asking about current practice? Currently most armed forces use shotguns for specific limited roles, and the US is not exceptional in that regard. Combat shotguns are useful mainly because they can fire different types of specialized ammunition, like less-lethal loads for crowd control or breaching ammunition for busting locks and blowing the hinges off doors. For offensive purposes they have a very short effective range relative to other long arms, something like 50-70 yards with buckshot and 100 or so with slugs, as against 300+ meters for an assault rifle. Within that range they're very effective, with the proviso that most types of shotgun ammunition have poor performance against body armor. The upshot is that they're used pretty rarely, but to that extent they are issued by any number of different countries' armed forces.

Ah. The article I'd read mentioned that combat shotguns are issued in the US military specifically in expectation of house to house fighting and similar situations, which obviously I don't know if is true or not and wondered if/why their use would be a particularly US thing, which the article said it was, beyond the current focus (as I understand it) on counter-insurgency methods and equipment.

sullat
Jan 9, 2012

Libluini posted:

Reading about the successes of the German navies in WW1 and WW2 it always seemed funny to me how Germany, as a land power, was the first power to defeat the Royal Navy at sea in a century.

Who else would have done it? Except for Crimea, the British didn't fight any other major powers between 1815 and 1914.

E: Not including the opium wars because the British navy so far outclassed the Manchu navy that British gunboats could sail the Chinese rivers with impunity.

sullat fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Nov 1, 2014

Phobophilia
Apr 26, 2008

by Hand Knit

MA-Horus posted:

Had to correct this for you. The German intelligence services were absolutely useless throughout the entire duration of the conflict. Almost laughably so. They were duped easier than a 5 year old.

My suspicion is that you get this kind of thing when your bureaucracy runs off patronage networks and your career is governed by your superiors hearing what they want to hear.

Bacarruda
Mar 30, 2011

Mutiny!?! More like "reinterpreted orders"

Alchenar posted:

Long story short, when a half dozen groups of soldiers from totally different military arms of your opponent all have plausible claims to have killed you, you done hosed up.

What's this about the Red Baron?

PittTheElder
Feb 13, 2012

:geno: Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

Libluini posted:

Reading about the successes of the German navies in WW1 and WW2 it always seemed funny to me how Germany, as a land power, was the first power to defeat the Royal Navy at sea in a century.

The Germans did have a rather good gunner training program, which cleverly focused on accuracy (unlike the Brits).

Trin Tragula
Apr 22, 2005

By the way, this propaganda poster is making me giggle like a child and it's too good not to share.



I hear that there was a rousing song to go with it...

GhostofJohnMuir
Aug 14, 2014

anime is not good
So I picked up Shelby Foote's "The Civil War: A Narrative" based on someone mentioning it in this thread, and it is very good, but I almost wish I hadn't because I knew next to nothing about the Peninsular Campaign and reading about the actual details is infuriating. Like I knew the general overview of McClellan being overly cautious and Lincoln interfering a ton and that the offensive got to the gates of Richmond before turning to poo poo. But reading the specifics is mind blowing. At every moment I kept thinking "McClellan's got it in the bag now" even though I know the outcome, because how could it even be possible to gently caress up at this point? And then he goes on and manages to do so. It's loving unreal.

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

GhostofJohnMuir posted:

So I picked up Shelby Foote's "The Civil War: A Narrative" based on someone mentioning it in this thread, and it is very good, but I almost wish I hadn't because I knew next to nothing about the Peninsular Campaign and reading about the actual details is infuriating. Like I knew the general overview of McClellan being overly cautious and Lincoln interfering a ton and that the offensive got to the gates of Richmond before turning to poo poo. But reading the specifics is mind blowing. At every moment I kept thinking "McClellan's got it in the bag now" even though I know the outcome, because how could it even be possible to gently caress up at this point? And then he goes on and manages to do so. It's loving unreal.

Along the long list of responses whenever an American asks some variant of "WW1? Didn't Europe learn anything from the ACW about how modern warfare would be trench based?" is that the North had plenty of opportunities to win the war outright in the field in the East, sheer incompetence is what kept the war going to the point where both sides had mobilised so much that a single battle couldn't end it.

xthetenth
Dec 30, 2012

Mario wasn't sure if this Jeb guy was a good influence on Yoshi.

PittTheElder posted:

The Germans did have a rather good gunner training program, which cleverly focused on accuracy (unlike the Brits).

A lot of the German ship design apparatus was very well structured and excellently trained. The German navy as a whole was generally quite competitive but they didn't have the resources they needed. Their battle line at Jutland got badly shot up, but none of it sunk.

simplefish
Mar 28, 2011

So long, and thanks for all the fish gallbladdΣrs!


Trin Tragula posted:

By the way, this propaganda poster is making me giggle like a child and it's too good not to share.



I hear that there was a rousing song to go with it...

The thing is, there's a view that wrongly puts historical people as prudish instead of crude (but not outwardly explicitly coarse). Hell look at even Shakespeare.

What I'm saying is that this is clearly intentional: it's saying that if you don't enlist, you're a wanker.

GhostofJohnMuir
Aug 14, 2014

anime is not good

Alchenar posted:

Along the long list of responses whenever an American asks some variant of "WW1? Didn't Europe learn anything from the ACW about how modern warfare would be trench based?" is that the North had plenty of opportunities to win the war outright in the field in the East, sheer incompetence is what kept the war going to the point where both sides had mobilised so much that a single battle couldn't end it.

The frustrating thing though is that in the particulars McClellan and his command were exceedingly competent. His actions drawing near to Richmond and then especially retreating his army through the Seven Days battle seemed well done. I would even say it was brilliant if McClellan had been faced with 2:1 odds against him instead of enjoying 3:2 odds. His withdrawal was a meticulously planned and even handedly executed affair that is also the largest farce that I've ever encountered in military history.

Some random questions that occur to me:

During the Seven Days battle, why was Lee's geographical intelligence so poor? I can understand faulty intel in most situations during the period, but the battle was fought within 30 miles of the Confederate capitol. Surely there were better maps available that would keep him from throwing his troopers forward into meat grinder positions he wasn't aware existed.

Is Stonewall Jackson the gooniest well known military commander of all time?

Have I spoiled myself by only reading the study in competence that are Grant's memoirs? How many more insanely dumb things am I going to get mad about? (I'm already dreading learning the details surrounding the Battle of Fredericksburg.)

HEY GUNS
Oct 11, 2012

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GhostofJohnMuir posted:

Is Stonewall Jackson the gooniest well known military commander of all time?
He was slim, decent looking, and in a committed loving relationship with another human being (not fictional), so I doubt it.

Edit: Also he was not terrified of Mexican people and learned Spanish when he was there during the war. Wrote love letters to his wife in it. That's way more contact with other cultures than the gooniest goons.

HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Nov 2, 2014

Kemper Boyd
Aug 6, 2007

no kings, no gods, no masters but a comfy chair and no socks
Alessandro dal Borro takes the cake. Like, he literally ate it all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_dal_Borro

HEY GUNS
Oct 11, 2012

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Kemper Boyd posted:

Alessandro dal Borro takes the cake. Like, he literally ate it all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_dal_Borro
Not well known. We need a real turbonerd that everyone's heard of. Although, he was a math major in college...

Edit: Also, both dal Borro and Jackson were too successful in life to be goon.

Edit 2: You know, if you're going to be hell of fat, the Spanish/Italian all-black-with-white-accents thing is a good look for that.

Edit 3: Wallenstein has brain problems, but the wrong kind of brain problems. On the other hand, his E/N threads would be hellacious. "Just Got New Job Why Does Nobody Like Me" and then the uncomfortable life revelations from everyone else he knows start pouring in around page ten.

HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Nov 2, 2014

Magni
Apr 29, 2009

Azran posted:

Second, what's the deal with nazi engineering. They have this "efficiency and unbeateable design" myth going on when a lot of their stuff was incredibly overengineered or just downright silly, but did they actually make anything "good" as a whole? I think the only pieces of equipment I've seen mentioned as good in their function are the MG42, the StuG IV and the stahlhelm. Am I grossly wrong? :v: Interested to know where did they NOT gently caress up.

In addition to all the other things brought up, there's a very small and humble thing that was revolutionary back in the day. And you're likely to have one in the trunk of your car.

I am talking, of course, about the Jerrycan. A robust, simple, cheap gas canister that can be filled or emptied without external tools or funnels was a loving revelation in ground-level logistics - it was such a good design that the British quickly came to prefer captured examples over their own cans and eventually the British, Americans and Soviets just up and copied it wholesale for their own production. And hence it came to be the worldwide standard, which it still is because in the last 70 years, nobody came up with a better design.

Magni fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Nov 2, 2014

Kemper Boyd
Aug 6, 2007

no kings, no gods, no masters but a comfy chair and no socks

HEY GAL posted:

Edit 3: Wallenstein has brain problems, but the wrong kind of brain problems. On the other hand, his E/N threads would be hellacious. "Just Got New Job Why Does Nobody Like Me" and then the uncomfortable life revelations from everyone else he knows start pouring in around page ten.

You should make a big ol post about Wallenstein's brain problems.

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HEY GUNS
Oct 11, 2012

FOPTIMUS PRIME

Kemper Boyd posted:

You should make a big ol post about Wallenstein's brain problems.
If steinrokkan hadn't gotten banned I'd have asked him to do it, I think he knows more about him than I do.

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