|
The most  thing I took away from Shattered Sword was how the IJN (and I imagine others of the era) delegated damage control and fire fighting to a specialized team per ship. Your firefighters go down a passage and don't come back? Well you've had a good run, time to board the lifeboats.
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 07:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 14:19 |
|
|
FAUXTON posted:The most Ummm.... I think you mean desperately fight the fire with little to no training for hours until most of the crew is dead, the captain has killed himself and the handful of surviving crew are allowed to jump into the water.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 07:49
|
|
|
What does "hold Me" in Arkansas mean in Anacondaplan.img?
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 07:51
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:Simple version of any lecture I can think of coming out of the book so far: "At any given point on any level from captain to Tokyo headquarters, assume the Imperial Navy's leadership did the dumbest thing imaginable to an outside observer who knows what the Americans are doing." There is a bit in Shattered Sword that basically goes "The Japanese Navy had planned for everything except for the Americans wanting to fight" that I think neatly describes it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 10:18
|
|
|
N-thing Battle Cry of Freedom as a great book. One of the best things it does is getting into the political situation of the United States beginning in the American-Mexican War, so that you really get a sense for how the Civil War started beyond "the South revolted to keep slavery" or some such other oversimplification. On Shattered Sword, the part that really stuck out to me (apart from the entire book) was the explanation of just how they ended up deciding to invade Midway in the first place. The IJA wouldn't pony up the troops for India, nor for the Australian mainland. Japan could (and did) invade the South Pacific, but only by making a half-assed compromise where they try to go for Port Moresby with only two carriers and then send the rest to Midway because they couldn't agree on anything else. drat. xthetenth posted:I think she actually does accomplish something in the end, which is nice. Also, isn't it totally painful reading all those bits where Yorktown and her air wing do everything right and the other two blunder around (although major credit to Richard Best for living up to that name when it counted). Dick Best and Dick Bong would make an amazing WW2 buddy gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 11:38 on Dec 19, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 11:36
|
|
|
CeeJee posted:There is a bit in Shattered Sword that basically goes "The Japanese Navy had planned for everything except for the Americans wanting to fight" that I think neatly describes it. I found it hard to believe the chapters talking about Yamamoto and company's friends for operations MI and AL until I looked up a couple of other sources. That's comic book levels of absurdly dysfunctional military leadership, and the war games in preparation for the operation where Yamamoto deemed a nameless subordinate playing the Americans doing something very close to what they ended up actually doing to be cheating and therefore ignored as impossible is something goddamn Hollywood would probably hesitate to put in a movie. Not that the American carrier strikes weren't behaving like a video game scenario where you (in this case, the Japanese carriers) face a few waves of easily dispatched enemies from various directions before the boss shows up.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 14:06
|
|
|
Has anyone got any more insight into Japanese WW2 gear beyond small arms, like heavy weapons, planes that aren't Zeroes, and vehicles? I know that a lot of Japanese tanks were lovely, but I gather the Type 97 managed to do its job reasonably well.
|
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 14:21
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:N-thing Battle Cry of Freedom as a great book. One of the best things it does is getting into the political situation of the United States beginning in the American-Mexican War, so that you really get a sense for how the Civil War started beyond "the South revolted to keep slavery" or some such other oversimplification. I recently finished Shelby Foote's The Civil War: A Narrative set, is there anything additional in Battle Cry of Freedom or is it more of an edited down version of that? Shelby Foote mostly references the Mexican-American war for how it influenced and shaped the relationships of the officer corps later in the American Civil and how Mexican territory was so key in south's (particularly Jefferson Davis) plans for the future. And while "The South Revolted to Keep Slavery" is an oversimplification it is also at the core of most of the tensions that lead up to the actual conflict.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 14:36
|
|
|
The japanese had some interesting aircraft. The N1K was a late war design that was supposedly very good, but hosed over by the lack of good quality fuel and pilots IIRC. Typical late war axis I guess. On the "huh" prototype side, they were supposed to receive a Me-163 but did not, so they built one with just the manual. They also made a suicide jet. I really wish I could go more in depth but that's bewbies' territory. I am just an aircraft aficionado.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 14:38
|
|
|
I've read both and Battle Cry of Freedom goes into more details regarding Kansas, John Brown etc during the pre-war period, although of course the details of the war are in far less detail than in Civil War: A Narrative. I would strongly suggest reading the book prior to Battle Cry of Freedom in the Oxford History of the United States: What Hath God Wrought: it's a really good book and illustrates the issues present within the US that directly lead to the civil war.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 14:40
|
|
|
Thanks to this thread, I just ordered Shattered Sword as a Christmas gift for my dad, continuing our grand family tradition of buying gifts for each other that we actually want for ourselves. This started in 1998 when my dad bought my mom a 300-CD changer that to this day she still doesn't know how to use.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 18:25
|
|
|
Was there any attempt by the Japanese population to oppose the government of Japan during the war?ninjahedgehog posted:Thanks to this thread, I just ordered Shattered Sword as a Christmas gift for my dad, continuing our grand family tradition of buying gifts for each other that we actually want for ourselves. This started in 1998 when my dad bought my mom a 300-CD changer that to this day she still doesn't know how to use. <INSERT USERNAME-POST COMBO JOKE HERE>
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 18:36
|
|
|
HisMajestyBOB posted:I'm looking at Battle Cry of Freedom, Shelby Foote's Civil War narrative history, and Ken Burns' Civil War film as gifts for my brother. I can only afford one of the three, though, so any recommendations or comments on them? As others have suggested: watch KBCW in its entirety first. It is extraordinary, probably the best popular history documentary I've ever seen. If that sparks an interest, BCOF is by far the best single volume academic work on the war that I'm aware of and makes a perfect first step into the academic world of the war. In particular the overview of the antebellum history of the US is maybe the best short/medium form work on US history that has ever been written. It is concise, accurate, entertaining, and very informative. BCOF necessarily takes a wider view of the war and does a really good job of explaining the general political history, the strategies, and the major battles. Foote's work is fundamentally different. His great focus is on the men who fought the war and the politicians of the era, more as living, breathing, thinking, feeling people versus a guy who was at this place on this date and did this thing. In particular his writing on Lincoln is pretty great; though it is pretty clear he is a bit...infatuated with the man, he really paints a picture of what it was like for Lincoln on a day to day basis from well before the war until the very end. Davis gets much the same treatment, and it really made me appreciate what he accomplished as a statesman much more than I did before. He has other favorites too: Grant, Forrest, Jackson, Sherman are the obvious ones, but he also writes quite a bit about Bragg and Polk, Farragut, Price, and Halleck. It is...very dense, and long, and not a good first choice, but I don't think any other work really illuminates the era quite as well.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 19:15
|
|
|
bewbies posted:Foote's work is fundamentally different... It is...very dense, and long, and not a good first choice, but I don't think any other work really illuminates the era quite as well. If you have to commute and are interested in the subject Foote's The Civil War: A Narrative is amazing as an audiobook.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 20:50
|
|
|
Please tell me Foote is the narrator, I might be able to catch up on my reading at work after all.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 21:14
|
|
|
100 Years Ago More fruitless Allied attacks on the Western Front. In Africa, there's an operation underway to clean German raiding-parties away from Tanzania's border with the Congo/Uganda/Kenya, and for the first time the British are using large numbers of African soldiers. Dunlop has an advert in today's paper claiming that if you don't buy Dunlop tyres, you're literally cheating the Navy. The paper also reports on the surely-irresistible Bogus Nurse Story, and carries the first report I've seen of the soon-common prank of soldiers taking their national flag across No Man's Land under cover of darkness and hanging it on the enemy barbed-wire. (Soon enough, the flags will start being booby-trapped with grenades.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 21:15
|
|
|
Murgos posted:If you have to commute and are interested in the subject Foote's The Civil War: A Narrative is amazing as an audiobook. I JUST FINISHED THIS. The narrator is a guy named Grover Gardner who is about as good a narrator as you'll find anywhere.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 21:23
|
|
|
Finished Shattered Sword after about ten hours, skipping most of the appendices, and it was a pretty enjoyable read. I had been under the impression that the Japanese took a lot more losses than four carriers and a heavy cruiser, but evidently not. Two things stick out to me about the battle of Midway overall: that God was having a sadistic laugh at the USS Nautilus, and that the Japanese military leadership was a song and dance away from going "You have failed me for the last time" in their utterly absurd dysfunctionality. When the Americans did not deign to follow Yamamoto's script, the Japanese floundered, and the entire strategic goal of the offensive boggles my mind in how wasteful and pointless it was. Even if the Japanese had invaded Midway, it seems like it would have been a slaughter of epic proportions for basically no meaningful gain.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 21:28
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:Finished Shattered Sword after about ten hours, skipping most of the appendices, and it was a pretty enjoyable read. I had been under the impression that the Japanese took a lot more losses than four carriers and a heavy cruiser, but evidently not. Had the US been able to launch a coordinated strike from all their carriers that arrived together then they likely would have.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 21:36
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:Had the US been able to launch a coordinated strike from all their carriers that arrived together then they likely would have. "Coordinated American strikes" and "the Battle of Midway" are two concepts which do not go together, I've learned.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 21:39
|
|
|
I seem to recall the US having to honor the possibility of the Japanese trying to move in for a surface action, and so couldn't pursue. That limits them to one day, which in turn puts the onus on the scouts to allow targets to be hit earlier and more often. After all, the strikes launched destroyed all Japanese carriers that were available for them to hit, iirc.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 21:41
|
|
|
xthetenth posted:I seem to recall the US having to honor the possibility of the Japanese trying to move in for a surface action, and so couldn't pursue. That limits them to one day, which in turn puts the onus on the scouts to allow targets to be hit earlier and more often. After all, the strikes launched destroyed all Japanese carriers that were available for them to hit, iirc. That doesn't really excuse all the attacking squadrons arriving piecemeal and often without fighter cover. Oh, and one strike just flying off into the sunset until it ran out of fuel and ditched because the CO couldn't read a compass.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 21:43
|
|
|
xthetenth posted:I seem to recall the US having to honor the possibility of the Japanese trying to move in for a surface action, and so couldn't pursue. That limits them to one day, which in turn puts the onus on the scouts to allow targets to be hit earlier and more often. After all, the strikes launched destroyed all Japanese carriers that were available for them to hit, iirc. That's what the book said, yeah. I had just been under the impression that the US air strikes inflicted significantly more damage than they did. Eliminating four Japanese carriers and a heavy cruiser was a neat hat trick, but my assumption going into the book was that the strikes had sunk several ships besides the flattops.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 21:44
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:That doesn't really excuse all the attacking squadrons arriving piecemeal and often without fighter cover. And what would the additional planes do if they didn't get shot to bits? They'd bury the Japanese carriers in even more ordinance most likely, which doesn't actually sink more ships. It was a really close run thing but I'd say the US ships accomplished about the same as they would have with better coordination but with way less margin of safety.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 21:51
|
|
|
It is totally worth reading this interview of the sole survivor of VT-8. It's a great mix of him bitching about his plane, relaying the harrowing experience, describing what he saw, nerding out about Japanese aviation procedures, and how little fucks they gave about Japanese AA fire. http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq81-8c.htm
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 21:58
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:Finished Shattered Sword after about ten hours, skipping most of the appendices, and it was a pretty enjoyable read. I had been under the impression that the Japanese took a lot more losses than four carriers and a heavy cruiser, but evidently not. In my opinion it has very many parallels to the recent American adventure in Iraq. Lots and lots of planning for the initial blow and excellent execution of that blow, but then the assumption is that blow is going to effectively be the only real action that needs to be taken. In the aftermath there's a dawning realization that follow up is needed, but there's only a murky sense of the goals and objectives they need to work towards and a lot of dithering, confusion and half cocked spur of the moment actions wastes any advantage the initial blow gained.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 22:00
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:"Coordinated American strikes" and "the Battle of Midway" are two concepts which do not go together, I've learned. Yeah, both sides were a clusterfuck compared to late war US carrier operations. Japan would probably have hosed up US carriers just as bad if they had gotten their strikes out. I just finished Herbert Bix's biography of Hirohito, and it really emphasized how lovely the overall Japanese decision making process was. Not to get too Orientalist, but its a problem when your standard cultural response to an impossible command is to keep your mouth shut, try your best, and fail.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 22:10
|
|
|
That reminds me: in "Nothing to envy" I noticed how in numerous times the author uses the term "asian culture". I thought that term was a big no no in modern times, alongside others like the concept of biological race (instead of sociocultural) when talking about stuff like North Koreans eating rice or sleeping in the floor. Some other times she says "confucian tradition" which makes more sense I think? I am wrong?
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 23:22
|
|
|
Azran posted:That reminds me: in "Nothing to envy" I noticed how in numerous times the author uses the term "asian culture". I thought that term was a big no no in modern times, alongside others like the concept of biological race (instead of sociocultural) when talking about stuff like North Koreans eating rice or sleeping in the floor. Some other times she says "confucian tradition" which makes more sense I think? I am wrong? It's problematic to read too much into it, but there are and were some serious cultural differences between Asian and European/American nations, particularly with regards to their militaries. To name an example from Shattered Sword, the senior US admiral at Midway functionally abdicated overall strategic command to his subordinate Admiral Spruance at one point, who at one point happily went to sleep so he could be well-rested for the next day, citing in an interview that he trusted his subordinates to know their business and wake him if need be. I got the distinct impression that nothing of the sort would have been imaginable for Yamamoto, Nagumo, Yamaguchi, or the other Japanese flag officers.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 00:09
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:When soldiers die singly in the course of normal life, they get normal burials "according to Christian and military usage," whatever the gently caress that means... According to Hans Wilhelm Kirchhof, Militaris Disciplina: "The one should be taken from there / or where he is / shot or wounded / dead / his squad-companions should take four pikes / each two should have their iron heads turned opposite from each other / bound together one or three times / so / that two pikes make one pole / bind the two poles together / under, over, and in the middle / with cords so close to each other / that the dead man with his Waht [bedding? bandages?] and clothing / like he died / can be laid between them and carried out. Before them go pipes and drums / behind go other squad companions / people from the country / and whoever wants to be there. Outside the camp on the Lermanplatz [assemblyplace?] / or wherever you go / a grave is made / and lay the corpse in it / cover it up. It'd be good / to say an Our Father with uncovered head: several is better / and sing a Holy Psalm along with it. The more esteem he has in the regiment / or if he held an office / the more music is brought before his corpse." "Squad-companions" is "Rottegeselle." In this century there are five common soldiers and one Gefreyter to a Rotte. It's usually translated as "file," as in "rank and file." It's a different word in German, though, and the files only correspond directly to squads at this time if you're using Swedish drill (six deep) so I use a different word as well. So not only would you live with these people (often sleeping in the same bed, if you can find a bed), eat with them, and fight with them standing before and behind you, if you are lucky enough to die outside of a battle situation, and if nobody's overloaded with others like you (in Wallenstein's camp at Gardelegen in early 1627 everyone got sick and they were tipping the dead twenty a day into open pits), they will carry you out. I've already written a little about the symbolic significance of the pike. In casual usage, a pike is "a weapon," other polearms are "short weapons," and a musket isn't a weapon at all, the parts of mercenary contracts that talk about equipment are full of lines like "muskets and weapons." The pikemen don't only fight with pikes, they sometimes sleep under them too, driving four or five of them into the earth and using them as the central supports of little thatch huts. And when someone very important is on campaign with the army and you need to ford a river, he will often dismount and be carried across on pikes, carried on the shoulders of his people. (I read an account where Charles V refused to do this, so there may have been a little gentle condescension involved--you can't really expect Die Da Oben to walk around like we do, can you? But he was bad at riding too, he had gout. In his case it was probably genetic.) In a similar way do they carry their dead. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Dec 20, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 00:44
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:It's problematic to read too much into it, but there are and were some serious cultural differences between Asian and European/American nations, particularly with regards to their militaries. To name an example from Shattered Sword, the senior US admiral at Midway functionally abdicated overall strategic command to his subordinate Admiral Spruance at one point, who at one point happily went to sleep so he could be well-rested for the next day, citing in an interview that he trusted his subordinates to know their business and wake him if need be. I got the distinct impression that nothing of the sort would have been imaginable for Yamamoto, Nagumo, Yamaguchi, or the other Japanese flag officers. I think that's as much an institutional thing as anything else. The US and UK navies had some serious similarity in a lot of regards due to WWI but they had some very pronounced differences of opinion as well, and the other European navies were likely more dissimilar.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 00:49
|
|
|
Battle Cry of Freedom is far more approachable than Shelby Foote's work. Both are good, but I wouldn't use Foote as an introduction. Can anybody sperg about the differences in low level (squad/platoon) tactics different nations used in WWII? I know a little: the German squad was built around fire and movement, with a machine gun providing the fire and everybody else the movement. The US Army, on the other hand, expected a BAR gunner and semi-auto rifle fire to provide a fire base (which usually wasn't enough so they called in artillery or air support). But I believe the US Marines followed a different doctrine, and I have no idea what the Russians, Japanese, British (etc, etc, etc) did.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 01:19
|
|
|
BurningStone posted:Can anybody sperg about the differences in low level (squad/platoon) tactics different nations used in WWII? I know a little: the German squad was built around fire and movement, with a machine gun providing the fire and everybody else the movement. The US Army, on the other hand, expected a BAR gunner and semi-auto rifle fire to provide a fire base (which usually wasn't enough so they called in artillery or air support). But I believe the US Marines followed a different doctrine, and I have no idea what the Russians, Japanese, British (etc, etc, etc) did. Squad and platoon are at quite a low level to really see the differences or similarities, in that eg. when you say that the US had to rely on artillery or air support, that's something that happened at higher levels - each platoon didn't have a dedicated wing of Thunderbolts or a battery of 155mm's waiting for call. Company and battalion assets would have been the first to rely on, eg. 60mm mortars and medium machineguns from the weapons platoon could be assigned to support individual platoons or squads. British rifle platoons OTOH had their own 2 inch mortar. Germans and Soviets also went with light mortars for a while. I can tell about Finnish infantry in Winter War that two of a rifle platoon's sections had a SMG and two had a LMG - a common interwar period model, I think? You can guess what their supposed roles were. Later in WW2 Finnish army had enough SMGs and LMGs to equip all rifle squads with a LMG and several SMGs. Platoons were also supposed to have a sniper with them, but the army had no scoped rifles so that's that.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 01:58
|
|
|
Thanks for all the advice and suggestions. I went with Battle Cry of Freedom - my brother is a history major and is interested in the Civil War, so approachability isn't an issue, but from all your descriptions it sounded like the better fit. I'll suggest Shelby Foote to him, too.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 03:57
|
|
|
I just spent MONTHS reading this thread. Two of them, mostly from the phone while bored. You are the best thread. As thanks, I present pictures of cannons I took at Castille De San Marcos in Saint Augustine, Florida. Nurdbot told me to post these before, but I didn't want to loose my place in the thread.   Hey tourists, here's how cannons work. He also had a spoon in his hat. Why? "Because I'm lazy and often hungry."  6lber field piece used for demonstration. It is reportedly LOUD as gently caress. On a 3oz charge, it develops 212 decibels.   A bronze cannon in the main courtyard.  A lonely 6lber field peice looking guy inside the fort.    GOONS THROUGH THE AGES (I have no idea what's going on with Spanish American War guy's legs)  It was a beautiful day.       Here's the full gallery of CANNON PICS http://imgur.com/a/uJN7P According to the docent, the cannons are a mix of local pieces, and stuff on loan by colleges and museums that have NOWHERE to put this old heavy poo poo. They love their guns here in the souf. Suspect Bucket fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Dec 20, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 05:06
|
|
|
I still don't know what the gently caress is going on with that Spanish American War reinactors pose.
|
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 05:12
|
|
|
SeanBeansShako posted:I still don't know what the gently caress is going on with that Spanish American War reinactors pose. Teddy Roosevelt is Torgo's new master I guess.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 05:51
|
|
|
SeanBeansShako posted:I still don't know what the gently caress is going on with that Spanish American War reinactors pose. Apart from standing awkwardly and unnaturally with his weight leaning backwards and his knees locked, he's got a big gut and he's wearing jodhpurs tucked into his boots. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Dec 20, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 05:51
|
|
|
ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Apart from standing awkwardly and unnaturally with his weight leaning backwards and his knees locked, he's got a big gut and he's wearing jodhpurs tucked into his boots. Wasn't General Shafter so fat that he spent a significant part of the war getting carried around on a door? Truth in gooniness.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 05:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 14:19 |
|
|
xthetenth posted:Wasn't General Shafter so fat that he spent a significant part of the war getting carried around on a door? Truth in gooniness. He was obese, yeah, but he also had gout and was generally in bad health anyway (aside from being a fatty fat fat) most of the time. The door thing I can't comment on.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 06:06
|
|