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HEY GAL posted:Speaking of the 20th century, when did naval captains start going down with their ships and when did officers start killing themselves when they lost? From the 17th century perspective this all seems pointlessly overwrought. At least for the boats, people copied the English, who professionalized the Navy by the mid 17th century. There was a strong emphasis on accurate documentation of decision making and actions, and accountability to either senior officials or courts-martial. So you have a system in place to review pretty much every major or minor action that takes place. Keep in mind that for the RN, you could be tried and executed if you "failed to do your utmost" in the face of the enemy. Losing your ship implies some lack of competence, and there might be awkward questions about whether you actually did your utmost if you survived a debacle where you lost your command. edit: also, the RN was in the habit of court-martialing people even if they were victorious, which was kind of interesting. KYOON GRIFFEY JR fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 02:10
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:edit: also, the RN was in the habit of court-martialing people even if they were victorious, which was kind of interesting. But either the Empire is less on top of things  than England or land forces are less on top of things than navies, because while a Generalloberst/Generalissimo or Oberst can lose his command and his authorization for loving up big time (or, of course, his life) I'm not aware of any...formal review process.
HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 02:16
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Sure, but RN officers faced courts-martial or boards of inquiry with alarming frequency. I think the trial process is a lot better than anywhere else, as well - the RN was highly structured, organized and had pretty coherent standards, processes and documentation. This meant that it was pretty obvious when you would be able to justify something to a board of inquiry and when you couldn't.
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Dec 1, 2014 02:26
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Sure, but RN officers faced courts-martial or boards of inquiry with alarming frequency. I think the trial process is a lot better than anywhere else, as well - the RN was highly structured, organized and had pretty coherent standards, processes and documentation. This meant that it was pretty obvious when you would be able to justify something to a board of inquiry and when you couldn't. Even "Lucky" Jack Aubrey went up in front of a court-martial for losing a ship a few times. He usually was acquitted even with mean ol' Admiral Harte trying to slap him down.
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Dec 1, 2014 02:55
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If he could beat the debt collectors to the courtroom doors, that is. Which I think is a good question: I know that the current American military prohibits getting higher clearances based on debt, but was there any similar sort of debt-related hassles for officers of older armies? I can't imagine that very many people would want to mess with a Roman officer/SS commander/one of Hegel's dudes while surrounded by their troops. \/\/ - Haha, the regular troops codifying IOU's is great. tokenbrownguy fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 03:27
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Verr posted:If he could beat the debt collectors to the courtroom doors, that is. Which I think is a good question: I know that the current American military prohibits getting higher clearances based on debt, but was there any similar sort of debt-related hassles for officers of older armies? I can't imagine that very many people would want to mess with a Roman officer/SS commander/one of Hegel's dudes while surrounded by their troops. At the lower levels, my dudes are in debt to one another, which is why the members of one of my regiments agreed that if you're lending money to a guy, you and he should appear in front of the Regimental Secretary and have him write up a document that says so, and that mentions who foots the bill should one of you die. And that's how a bunch of drunken fuckups accidentally invented a banking system. I have not yet read any legal disputes over this. Edit: As far as the finances of governments are concerned, which really is a separate issue, I bet King Hong Kong or Archange1 know a lot more than I do. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 03:48
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Verr posted:If he could beat the debt collectors to the courtroom doors, that is. Which I think is a good question: I know that the current American military prohibits getting higher clearances based on debt, but was there any similar sort of debt-related hassles for officers of older armies? I can't imagine that very many people would want to mess with a Roman officer/SS commander/one of Hegel's dudes while surrounded by their troops. Marc Anthony was in obscene amounts of debt at various points of his life since he was a young adult. He made it pretty far.
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Dec 1, 2014 06:05
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JcDent posted:2. I can't find a link, but one guy had an article where he stated that soviet doctrine really helped him in wargames and that said doctrine was "plan axis of attack, launch massive artillery barrages on likely targets, rush the axis-es, if any of the axises get bogged down in fighting, switch troop to another one, etc". http://www.wargaming.co/rules/dunnkempf/articles/whyrussiantactics.htm
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Dec 1, 2014 06:05
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Animal posted:Marc Anthony was in obscene amounts of debt at various points of his life since he was a young adult. He made it pretty far. So all the majors in politics, excepting Crassus I guess, it was baked into the system.
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Dec 1, 2014 08:03
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Yes, that. I wanted to ask if that was really how the Soviets planned their attacks.
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Dec 1, 2014 08:24
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PittTheElder posted:So all the majors in politics, excepting Crassus I guess, it was baked into the system. To expand on this, one of the steps of the Cursus Honorum was Quaestor, who literally was the dude in charge of festivals and games. You weren't paid for that honor and the rest of the state sure as hell wasn't going to help pay for all the games, so all the costs came out of your pocket. And without the connections you got from being a good quaestor you weren't going to get elected to consul so if you wanted power you had to spend everything you had, then keep spending until you were out of office. IIRC trying to get enough loot to pay off Crassus is one of the many reasons that Julius Ceasar wanted proconsular authority in Gaul, because then he had an excuse to conquer/loot the poo poo out of Gaul, along with the glory that comes with conquering a massive new province for the Republic.
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Dec 1, 2014 09:37
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 100 Years Ago Patriots! Are you concerned about your flag getting dirty? Then boy, do I have the advert for you! Ahem. We're also talking the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Belgrade, the French giving the go-ahead to various landship projects, and a British sapper who's sick and tired of the lack of hand grenades, so is making his own out of a jam tin, some scrap metal, and a piece of sticky-back plastic. Oh, and I made a fish pun of which I'm rather proud. (Patriots!)
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Dec 1, 2014 19:03
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I came across this article today: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/30/athens-1944-britains-dirty-secret about the resistance in Greece and how Britain hosed them over. It is pretty good and also pretty drat insane how Britain just switched sides after the Germans were out because Churchill was afraid of communists.
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Dec 1, 2014 21:01
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Google Operation Gladio if you want to get real mad.
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Dec 1, 2014 21:28
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MrBling posted:I came across this article today: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/30/athens-1944-britains-dirty-secret about the resistance in Greece and how Britain hosed them over. I think it's pretty understandable from a geopolitical standpoint. A communist Greece intrudes on the Mediterranean and adds a strategic problem for Italy and Turkey. You're also asking people in the '40s and '50s to not be suspicious of communists when Stalin seems like he's poised to swallow Europe (He's not, but he's afraid the capitalists want to invade the USSR)
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Dec 1, 2014 21:32
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MrBling posted:I came across this article today: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/30/athens-1944-britains-dirty-secret about the resistance in Greece and how Britain hosed them over. Ha, if there is one thing that Churchill hated it was Communists: "Bolshevism is not a policy; it is a disease." "The day will come when it will be recognized without doubt throughout the civilized world that the strangling of Bolshevism at birth would have been an untold blessing to the human race." "Everyone can see how Communism rots the soul of a nation; how it makes it abject and hungry in peace, and proves it base and abominable in war."
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Dec 1, 2014 21:34
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I have a theory when he was captured by the Boers one of his captors was really a anarchist version of That Guy, thus creating a lifetime of hatred for all forms of radical politics.
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Dec 1, 2014 21:39
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MrBling posted:I came across this article today: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/30/athens-1944-britains-dirty-secret about the resistance in Greece and how Britain hosed them over. Churchill was a gigantic rear end in a top hat in practically every way, but he was kind of the rear end in a top hat of the hour when it came to steering Britain through WWII. It kind of sucks that someone else wasn't in charge to handle the realignment of global power but that poo poo is so loving complex and I wish there was a thread for the immediate post-war period.
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Dec 1, 2014 21:49
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Was Churchill really so senile during his last stint that he didn't personally micromanage the Malayan emergency?
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Dec 1, 2014 22:14
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Tevery Best posted:Out of curiosity, what are American standardized tests used for? Over here it's essentially a base for admission to a better school at the next level (including universities), which I think is better than having uneven standards across the board, with different institutions admitting based on different criteria. They may be some more knowledgeable people, but as far as Warsaw Pact weapons development (post Stalin, Stalin had some ideas like "Oh, dude wants to get out of Gulag? Well, if he designs a new weapons while in Gulag, out he goes!") goes: 1: One should emphasize that this was a very considerable investment, especially in human resources. Being a weapons developer was a hugely prestigious position. 2: The Soviets tended to have several design beuros for each major project, and one could argue that Weapons development was the only sector of the Soviet economy where a truely competetive market existed. 3: As the "customer" in that market happened to be the Soviet military, the customer could indeed demand and often get considerable improvements. Generally speaking, military decided it wanted something, handed developing orders to different designers, the designers then competed with each other. 4: While local party bosses often tried to influence the procurement process (like, the Major equivalent of Tcheljabisnk would vigorously lobby within his network for designs from his area), they had a tendency to cancel each other out. 5: The design specification specified pretty precize "core numbers" as in "Tanks gun should pierce at least this, tank armor should take that etc." they did usually not specify "soft" features like ergonomics. What was a "hard, core feature" and what was a "soft feature" wasnt that fixed. Designs were focused accordingly. 6: Basically everyone in the USSRs decision making had a measure of military experience. Basically everyone lost friends and/or family in war. In some cases military experience from battles nearly or actually lost. This does change the way in which decision makers look at weapons. 7: As far as the Warsaw pact goes, imho (this is a somewhat contentios issue) the design experience of the other Warsaw pact nations was underutilized because Poland, Czecheslovakia or East Germany (who all had some designs which were imho better then Soviet equivalents) would face very serious issues with getting their equipment used by the Soviet Union. This was also the case for Nato Nations and the USA, however, non US Nato is still a pretty big defence market, non Soviet Warsaw pact much less so.
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Dec 1, 2014 23:13
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As far as flagchat goes, the Austrians have always been good at heraldry. People also dont tend to awnser "Austria" when you ask them "which European nations have Hammer and Sickle in their coat of arms, today?" 
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Dec 1, 2014 23:33
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Thats one hell of a bird
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Dec 1, 2014 23:43
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The poo poo it has seen. Ottomans, Napoleon, several generations of angry Prussians and don't even mention that rear end in a top hat Russian Eagle stealing his bit on top of all that.
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Dec 1, 2014 23:50
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Mightypeon posted:They may be some more knowledgeable people, but as far as Warsaw Pact weapons development (post Stalin, Stalin had some ideas like "Oh, dude wants to get out of Gulag? Well, if he designs a new weapons while in Gulag, out he goes!") goes: That's not entirely correct, it was more like "you're going to develop weapons faster if we give you this nice space to concentrate in! But oops, is also prison". The prisons weren't a part of the GULAG system, IIRC. Mightypeon posted:3: As the "customer" in that market happened to be the Soviet military, the customer could indeed demand and often get considerable improvements. Generally speaking, military decided it wanted something, handed developing orders to different designers, the designers then competed with each other. Sometimes, sometimes not. Kotin, for instance, was a colossal prima donna that could get his way, and Koshkin could and did tell the government to go gently caress itself when someone got on his case. As for the differences between weapons procurement, the process is described here by the CIA. The major difference is that a revolutionary but initially flawed tank like the T-64 would likely bankrupt a US company and cause a scandal, while under the Soviet system, problems were ironed out and production continued. This, of course, caused other problems (such as dumb poo poo like the T-62A), but resulted in some very solid vehicles.
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Dec 1, 2014 23:53
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JcDent posted:Yes, that. I wanted to ask if that was really how the Soviets planned their attacks. Yes and no. - In the preparatory phase, the Soviets would try and conceal their buildup (with the place of the attack decided upon with the strenght of enemy troops and access to road and rail infrastructure foremost in mind) and create fake or diversionary offensives at other points to hopefully draw off enemy troops. - Once the real attack goes underway, it does with a huge opening bombardement that's as much meant to confuse and hold down the defender as it is to kill him, followed by a full-scale frontal attack along the line. - At this point, sheer speed becomes the overriding priority. You want to have a breakthrough into the enemies rear before he can react and shift reserves or stage an orderly withdrawal. And the way to do that is to drill everyone right down to the company commanders to aggressively reinforce success - IE, throw your supporting fires and reserves behind the attack that shows the best progress. The higher-ups aren't even that involved at this time, it's literally just everyone doing what they learned at the military academy. - Once you have your breakthrough, you roll your armored/mechanised resrve through it with orders to race into the enemy rear as far as possible, evading major points of resistance and creating a godawful mess in the lines of supply and communication right up until your mobile forces get bogged down (often less due to enemy action and more due to outrunning their logistics). This approach sacrifices a measure of tactical flexibility and makes units on the tactical scale more predictable. The advantage of this, however, is sheer speed - everyone knows roughly what to do and what everyone else is going to do and the result is that large formations (regiments and up) can reorient and move at an operational tempo that enables the attacker to just blitz the defender and overwhelm him with local concentrations of superior force. NATO was understandably pretty drat scared of it throughout the Cold War - one major breakthrough and you can kiss everything east of the Rhine goodbye.
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Dec 2, 2014 00:17
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1550NM posted:Thats one hell of a bird As far as I remember, some guy designed/redesigned/added the broken chains of that flag in Vienna while the Nazis were still holding the city. Which takes some pretty serious balls.
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Dec 2, 2014 00:22
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Mightypeon posted:
This is partially true, but it's hard to over-emphasize just what a huge, swinging dick the US has (and has) inside NATO. If you really want to see this look at the history of small arms development, especially regarding cartridge acceptance. Pretty much everything with the notable exception of 9mm is the story of US development priorities being foisted upon the Europeans, frequently at the cost of abandoning some much more promising cartridges in favor of whatever the US procurement brass was in love with at the time. The fact that the world never saw a mass produced FN FAL in .280 British is a loving crime. edit: or, gently caress it, even a M14 in .280.
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Dec 2, 2014 00:23
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Ensign Expendable posted:That's not entirely correct, it was more like "you're going to develop weapons faster if we give you this nice space to concentrate in! But oops, is also prison". The prisons weren't a part of the GULAG system, IIRC. Thanks for the corrections, you were pretty much who I had in mind with "more knowledgeable people"!
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Dec 2, 2014 00:24
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Cyrano4747 posted:This is partially true, but it's hard to over-emphasize just what a huge, swinging dick the US has (and has) inside NATO. If you really want to see this look at the history of small arms development, especially regarding cartridge acceptance. Pretty much everything with the notable exception of 9mm is the story of US development priorities being foisted upon the Europeans, frequently at the cost of abandoning some much more promising cartridges in favor of whatever the US procurement brass was in love with at the time. From my part East German/part Russian perespective, there was the "grass is greener on the other side" thing concerning the flaws and benefits of the respective "big brothers", and I honestly dont know all too much on the Cold War era Nato side of things. US small arms werent exactly held in high regard however. West German G3 was pretty respected, M14 and M16 a lot less so.
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Dec 2, 2014 00:28
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For WW2, what would have stopped giant super death fortress tanks that advanced with a bunch of infantry keeping other infantry off their back? I'm talking tanks 3 or 4 times the size of "regular" WW2 tanks. I'm thinking it would just be artillery fire.
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Dec 2, 2014 06:06
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Ensign Expendable posted:
I wonder if I could apply that to videogames... likely 4X space titles. Magni posted:
This is interesting, because the stereotype in countries that had to endure being in Soviet Union is that in soviet Russia, nobody knows what anybody should be doing. Unless, of course, you're a Russian sympathizer, then they just can do no wrong.
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Dec 2, 2014 06:08
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cheerfullydrab posted:For WW2, what would have stopped giant super death fortress tanks that advanced with a bunch of infantry keeping other infantry off their back? I'm talking tanks 3 or 4 times the size of "regular" WW2 tanks. I'm thinking it would just be artillery fire. Uhm. Aircraft would ruin one.
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Dec 2, 2014 06:12
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cheerfullydrab posted:For WW2, what would have stopped giant super death fortress tanks that advanced with a bunch of infantry keeping other infantry off their back? I'm talking tanks 3 or 4 times the size of "regular" WW2 tanks. I'm thinking it would just be artillery fire. Mechanical failure.
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Dec 2, 2014 06:12
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cheerfullydrab posted:For WW2, what would have stopped giant super death fortress tanks that advanced with a bunch of infantry keeping other infantry off their back? I'm talking tanks 3 or 4 times the size of "regular" WW2 tanks. I'm thinking it would just be artillery fire. Aircraft, maintenance, and logistics.
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Dec 2, 2014 06:13
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cheerfullydrab posted:For WW2, what would have stopped giant super death fortress tanks that advanced with a bunch of infantry keeping other infantry off their back? I'm talking tanks 3 or 4 times the size of "regular" WW2 tanks. I'm thinking it would just be artillery fire. I'm thinking it would be soft ground and mechanical failure, along with continual refueling needs. Something that big takes a lot of horsepower to move, and lots of horsepower means lots of mechanics and down time and fuel. It would also tend to just dig the dirt under the treads rather than moving the thing forward.
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Dec 2, 2014 06:14
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cheerfullydrab posted:For WW2, what would have stopped giant super death fortress tanks that advanced with a bunch of infantry keeping other infantry off their back? I'm talking tanks 3 or 4 times the size of "regular" WW2 tanks. I'm thinking it would just be artillery fire. Mud. The Germans tested a prototype of a 200-ton tank, and even worked on a design for a 1500-ton tank. At that size, the weight is so great that no matter how good the treads are, it'll sink right into soft ground and bad terrain will ruin the suspensions. edit: How would the Soviet doctrine on this page compare to NATO doctrine in terms of resource use? It seems like the Soviets rely more on having a large quantity of unguided artillery shells, while NATO was more about precision munitions. Chamale fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Dec 2, 2014 |
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Dec 2, 2014 06:15
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Chamale posted:Mud. The Germans tested a prototype of a 200-ton tank, and even worked on a design for a 1500-ton tank. At that size, the weight is so great that no matter how good the treads are, it'll sink right into soft ground and bad terrain will ruin the suspensions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IACglchX9n0 E; Nonsarcasm. Precision is a more modern thing.
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Dec 2, 2014 06:28
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HEY GAL posted:And that's how a bunch of drunken fuckups accidentally invented a banking system. Now I'm curious about whether the proto-banks of mercenary companies had any influence on the foundation of Swiss banking (seeing as they exported a few mercenaries on occasion before 1874).
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Dec 2, 2014 06:45
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cheerfullydrab posted:For WW2, what would have stopped giant super death fortress tanks that advanced with a bunch of infantry keeping other infantry off their back? I'm talking tanks 3 or 4 times the size of "regular" WW2 tanks. I'm thinking it would just be artillery fire. Reality. The greatest enemy of all visionaries.
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Dec 2, 2014 06:51
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Now I'm curious about whether the proto-banks of mercenary companies had any influence on the foundation of Swiss banking (seeing as they exported a few mercenaries on occasion before 1874). My favorite detail of Gucciardini's account of the Sack of Rome is that he saw landsknechts forcing Roman nobles to write them checks during the sack. Which means the banks must have still been functioning...
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Dec 2, 2014 06:59
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