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Trin Tragula posted:Winston Churchill has a Good Idea Six words you didn't want to hear in WWI. Well, at least if you were part of the Entente.  quote:Considering how much British forces get talked up and excused as "oh, they were designed as a colonial police force", they've managed to make a hilariously horrendous bollocks of these two battles. Oh god, Tanga. This is gonna get fun. 
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Nov 3, 2014 21:34
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A late Cold War Soviet 'Motorised Rifle' Division was decked out with 6 tank battalions, 4 tracked IFV battalions (BMP), and 6 wheeled APC battalions (BTR) spread over 4 regiments. Add more than a hundred (self propelled) gun tubes and MLRS systems and you've got a motorised division so heavy that it boggles the mind. Armoured infantry is what the UK calls their Warrior IFV units IIRC. e: VVV yeah, what I was getting at is that with 1970s 'attack' aircraft having twice the payload of a WWII bomber and a modern destroyer displacing as much as a 1940s heavy cruiser, there has been some amount of nomenclatural inflation. Koesj fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 21:52
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The Soviets never came to make a difference between motorised and mechanised infantry in their military nomenclature.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:56
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Magni posted:Six words you didn't want to hear in WWI. Well, at least if you were part of the Entente. Well there was one point where it was good to hear, but that's still a while off. (Good old landships).
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Nov 3, 2014 22:28
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Koesj posted:e: VVV yeah, what I was getting at is that with 1970s 'attack' aircraft having twice the payload of a WWII bomber and a modern destroyer displacing as much as a 1940s heavy cruiser, there has been some amount of nomenclatural inflation.
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Nov 3, 2014 22:31
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tonberrytoby posted:I think you mean deflation. And I'm supposed to be an economic historian 
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Nov 3, 2014 22:37
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Benny the Snake posted:So I watched "Fury" for the second time over the weekend and I have a question. I got from the film that Sherman tanks were regularly ripped to shreds by the German Tiger tanks, so were swarming tactics common to compensate? This came up a few pages back, but I don't think we talked about tactics. The short answer is no, this didn't happen. The long answer is that the battlefield is not a flat featureless plain. Even if you were in a bog standard 75 mm Sherman, you can punch through the side of a Tiger at a few hundred yards. If you see a Tiger, you don't need to rush it while avoiding explosions in an action packed manner, you withdraw, relocate, and then hit it in the side. Or call in artillery. Or air support. Or just drive away, knowing that the 19 other Shermans that the Allies have for the cost of that one Tiger are currently overrunning the curiously tank-less German infantry that was guarding the extensive support tail for that Tiger. Stories of Shermans being torn up by Tigers come from instances of driving into a well camouflaged 75 mm gun belt. If your platoon gets filled with holes by something you never saw, it's easy to assume that it was the biggest toughest thing in the theatre to save face.
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Nov 3, 2014 22:47
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tonberrytoby posted:I think you mean deflation. That puts me in mind of the old story that the RN called their Harrier carriers "through-deck cruisers" to make it easier to get the funding from Parliament. And that's not actually true. The Invincible class carriers came out of a design study into the next 'command cruiser in 1967. As early as 1960 the RN had been producing sketch designs labelled "cruiser" that had a full flight deck for helicopters. By the end of the decade they were looking into putting full fleet command capabilities on a platform that could defend itself (1 Sea Slug SAM launcher) as well as carrier a large contingent of ASW helicopters. Adding fixed-wing capability to carry the Harrier was an obvious extension, and so a "cruiser" ended up with a flight deck and carrying fixed wing aircraft. And you have to admit, there's nothing better for area air defense than a fighter, even a Harrier. Freedman's book on British Cruisers is amazing.
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Nov 3, 2014 22:51
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MrYenko posted:A U.S.-centric designation for mechanized or motorized infantry regiments (later, battalions only,) attached to an armored division. They had some great info on the Russian Army, but the guy realized he was getting 90% of it from one single book so decided to remove it till he could get more sources.
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Nov 3, 2014 23:05
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The specific scene in Fury does kinda work, though. The Tiger is hidden in a hull-down position with a wide open field of fire and only opens up once Fury&Co are well within its engagement envelope and away from any obvious cover - trying to blind it with a smoke shell and bumrush it is genuinely the best move they can attempt by the time they realise what they walked into.
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Nov 3, 2014 23:11
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My problem with Fury is that while it was intended to show the "darker" side of the war on the Allies' side, but there were barely any looting scenes.
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Nov 3, 2014 23:46
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My question about that entire Fury scene was why the Tiger could only drive forward and back and not turn.
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Nov 4, 2014 00:30
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Turning in a late war German tank was liable to gently caress up the final drive or track pins or some other component.
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Nov 4, 2014 00:38
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HEY GAL posted:the Praiseworthy Mansfeldischer Regiment Of Horse And Foot
HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Nov 4, 2014 |
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Nov 4, 2014 00:43
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SlothfulCobra posted:My problem with Fury is that while it was intended to show the "darker" side of the war on the Allies' side, but there were barely any looting scenes. Fury 2 will be Russian Brad Pitt raping and pillaging his way through Berlin in a T-34 with a ragtag crew of Kazakhs, Siberians, Georgians, and a Ukrainian guy who really doesn't want to be there.
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Nov 4, 2014 01:13
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Ensign Expendable posted:Turning in a late war German tank was liable to gently caress up the final drive or track pins or some other component. Seriously? Was it possible for a design to be that bad?
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Nov 4, 2014 01:23
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Chamale posted:Seriously? Was it possible for a design to be that bad? The designs were overcomplicated and the manufacture setup primitive enough that workers would write on the tank in chalk what they had done so they didn't forget where they were. It's not a very resilient system to loss of skilled workers or production disruption. Also Nazi Germany didn't have a great situation from a metallurgical standpoint.
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Nov 4, 2014 01:42
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Chamale posted:Seriously? Was it possible for a design to be that bad?  GermanEngineering.jpg This is pretty representative of their approach to engineering as a whole. Elegant as all get-out, but it has a tendency to suck in the real world. (Or any time anyone that isn't an engineer or factory technician has to work on it without exactly the right tools and equipment.) You can see this approach in everything, from their entrenching tools to their tanks, to small arms, to airplanes. They pioneered replace-instead-of-repair logistics with a few of their aircraft engines, but they did it in a time before containerized shipping and just-in-time parts delivery. It would have worked in Germany of 1938 (or 2014, for that matter,) but in Germany of 1944-45, it was less than optimal.
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Nov 4, 2014 01:46
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Bacarruda posted:Fury 2 will be Russian Brad Pitt raping and pillaging his way through Berlin in a T-34 with a ragtag crew of Kazakhs, Siberians, Georgians, and a Ukrainian guy who really doesn't want to be there. But it's okay because deep down he's really a decent guy who's just hurt by all the awful stuff he's seen and done, which he shows by sneaking off to the side and making constipated faces while smoking.
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Nov 4, 2014 01:52
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SlothfulCobra posted:My problem with Fury is that while it was intended to show the "darker" side of the war on the Allies' side, but there were barely any looting scenes. What about the painfully long loot/rape scene that seemed to take up about a quarter of the movie?
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Nov 4, 2014 03:15
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MrYenko posted:to small arms, not really. No more so at least than any other major power from that period (say, 30s-early 50s) There are one or two famously over-designed examples, but those were all due to pants-on-head retarded lists of design demands from procurement command levels.
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Nov 4, 2014 03:53
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MrYenko posted:
Meanwhile they made the jerrycan, which while significantly more complex than other fuel containers, came together into a thing of engineering elegance.
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Nov 4, 2014 04:28
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Phobophilia posted:Meanwhile they made the jerrycan, which while significantly more complex than other fuel containers, came together into a thing of engineering elegance. Only because none of the big German engineering firms were involved in making that. Ensign Expendable put it best last page: Ensign Expendable posted:If Aders had made the Jerry can, it would weigh 500 kilograms and take a month to make, but it would be accepted for service anyway because Posche's proposal would be just as bad, but also twice as expensive and prone to spontaneously catching fire.
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Nov 4, 2014 05:28
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Bacarruda posted:Fury 2 will be Russian Brad Pitt raping and pillaging his way through Berlin in a T-34 with a ragtag crew of Kazakhs, Siberians, Georgians, and a Ukrainian guy who really doesn't want to be there. You mean East Prussia.
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Nov 4, 2014 07:22
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MrYenko posted:
pffft, amateurs 
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Nov 4, 2014 07:35
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Phobophilia posted:Meanwhile they made the jerrycan, which while significantly more complex than other fuel containers, came together into a thing of engineering elegance. If those engineers end up with a "boring" project where nobody is interested in adding a useless extra features those guys made amazing stuff. Like the Jerrycan or the E94/KEL2.
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Nov 4, 2014 11:41
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Taerkar posted:pffft, amateurs Flatheads and pushrods? Pfft, kid stuff.
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Nov 4, 2014 11:59
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Does anyone have any comments to make about this timelapse map of the American Civil War? I don't know too much about the ACW. http://io9.com/watch-the-american-civil-war-as-it-rages-across-four-ag-1653598604
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Nov 4, 2014 15:05
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Fangz posted:Does anyone have any comments to make about this timelapse map of the American Civil War? I don't know too much about the ACW. I'm not going to comment on any particular "border" that he defines because I'm not nearly a big enough sperg to know about that kind of nitty-gritty, but I kind of object to the entire notion of "front lines" in a lot of those theaters that he shows. Really, basically everywhere that isn't Virginia/Maryland. My basic understanding of the ACW, and 19th century (and earlier) warfare in general, is that the notion of "front lines" doesn't really exist in the same way as it does a hundred years later. Someone correct me if I'm terrifically wrong, but I've always thought more in terms of military units operating in areas that exert a certain level of control over those areas. If Sherman happens to be marching through the county next door some of his foraging parties might go through your orchards, for example, but it's not like he's going to effectively impede your ability to ride around his army and go visit someone 50 miles away. The late-war map in particular just seems to imply Confederate forces diced into pockets and forced to surrender like an early version of the big early Barbarossa encirclements when my take-away from reading about the ACW was always about the late-war confederate military basically being so beat up and low on supplies that they couldn't prevent Sherman from walking to the coast. Someone correct me if I'm way, way off base with this, but I just kind of object to how he's defining what appear to be very thick borders/frontiers at a very low, gut level. Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Nov 4, 2014 |
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Nov 4, 2014 15:32
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Fangz posted:Does anyone have any comments to make about this timelapse map of the American Civil War? I don't know too much about the ACW. At first glance it looks like a very accurate depiction. The website you posted describes "lines" which isn't really accurate in the sense that we think of "lines" that'd stretch across an entire theater as they were during the 20th century; it is more of a combination of "areas of control" coupled with general movements of armies. Also that reminded me of the CSA operation in NM/Arizona which was really funny.
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Nov 4, 2014 15:37
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Cyrano4747 posted:I'm not going to comment on any particular "border" that he defines because I'm not nearly a big enough sperg to know about that kind of nitty-gritty, but I kind of object to the entire notion of "front lines" in a lot of those theaters that he shows. Really, basically everywhere that isn't Virginia/Maryland. Keeping lines of communication and supply (esp. by rail and waterway) was a pretty big deal though? There might not be a line but if some dude marches past you and torches your depots you're going to have a bad time so you probably want to put dudes in his way.
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Nov 4, 2014 16:45
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A huge portion of Union manpower was spent guarding those supply lines, and it got more demanding the further they got into the south. Then the garrisons need supplies of their own, which need guarding, which needs more men, which makes Sherman say "gently caress it, let's just march all the way to Savannah."
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Nov 4, 2014 17:01
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bewbies posted:
Do tell!
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Nov 4, 2014 17:05
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Saint Celestine posted:Do tell! Long story short, if your supply train gets burnt when you're balls deep in remarkably inhospitable territory, it doesn't matter how many battlefield successes you have, you're walking back to Texas thirty pounds lighter. Or, you know, the JJ posted:Keeping lines of communication and supply (esp. by rail and waterway) was a pretty big deal though? There might not be a line but if some dude marches past you and torches your depots you're going to have a bad time so you probably want to put dudes in his way.
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Nov 4, 2014 17:20
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Ensign Expendable posted:This came up a few pages back, but I don't think we talked about tactics. The short answer is no, this didn't happen. From my understanding the general rule of Tank Warfare was whoever sees the other guy first generally wins.
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Nov 4, 2014 17:43
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100 Years Ago The Ypres salient continues to snap, crackle and pop without any infantry attacks. This is probably for the best, since it's a major comedy day everywhere else. The hors d'oeuvre sees a German cruiser trying to go back to Wilhelmshaven, getting lost, and bashing itself into two mines, with predictable consequences. But the main course is another day of action at Tanga. The British advance is impeded by everything from heavy machine-gun fire, through comedy pratfalls and senior officers getting themselves inconveniently shot, to a well-timed counter-attack by a large swarm of exceptionally disgruntled bees. Yes, bees. The men are prepared for many things; but bees are not one of them. It's also a particularly interesting day in the Telegraph; the Belgium Fund has now raised a million shillings, even as the paper reports a considerable increase in "the volume of pauperism in England and Wales" due to the war. There's also the first example I can find (on page 12) of war news being reported in terms other than the most glorious and patriotic possible.
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Nov 4, 2014 19:44
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Rhymenoserous posted:From my understanding the general rule of Tank Warfare was whoever sees the other guy first generally wins. Yes. A lot of people focus on gun caliber and armour thicknesses, but ignore the immense advantage that the first shot gives you. For instance, the Panther's nearly blind gunner would take as long as 30 seconds to dial in on a target, and this is after receiving its location from the commander. This is a crippling weakness, since at AT gun will always have the first shot on you. Carius wrote that if a tank fails to find and knock out that gun before the second shot, that tank is toast. He estimated that knocking out an AT gun was twice as hard as knocking out an enemy tank.
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Nov 4, 2014 20:36
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Saint Celestine posted:Do tell! It was the Civil War version of "Let us march into this desert land, we will be greeted as liberators," with even worse success.
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Nov 4, 2014 20:49
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:It was the Civil War version of "Let us march into this desert land, we will be greeted as liberators," with even worse success. Lol, I just finished a book about the French intervention in Mexico which was yet another desert clusterfuck happening at the same time. ( Should we enter Emperor Maximilian in the goony leader contest?)
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Nov 4, 2014 21:29
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P-Mack posted:Lol, I just finished a book about the French intervention in Mexico which was yet another desert clusterfuck happening at the same time. ( Should we enter Emperor Maximilian in the goony leader contest?) Maximilian is kind of weird. According to the wikipedia page on him, the one about his execution is accurate 
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Nov 4, 2014 21:36
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