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MG42 posted:Talking about WWII navies, did the Royal Dutch Navy do anything of note? The subs did pretty well, and while technically not Navy, the Dutch merchant navy played a pretty important part in supplying the Allies in the war, with over 850 ships being pressed into service at the start of the war. About half of them were sunk during the war, but transports arent sexy so it's not well known sadly. Here is a pretty good documentary about them (in Dutch) http://www.npogeschiedenis.nl/andere-tijden/afleveringen/2010-2011/Gevaren-op-zee-de-koopvaardij-in-WOII-Deel-1.html Molentik fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 01:17
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SeanBeansShako posted:Speaking of submarine forces, how'd the Royal Navy submarines do in the 2nd World War? They were pretty active in the Mediterranean. That's not really ideal conditions for submarining though. The water is much more clear than in the Atlantic, and so airplanes could still spot subs that had dived halfway to crush depth. And since there's no much land around, spotter aircraft were very common. Thankfully, the Italian navy was very timid after 1940, and the Germans couldn't really bring much of their resources to bear. Several u-boats were shipped by land in the Med though. RN submarines would start hanging around outside the known u-boat bases in France and Norway and lay mines. The Germans were afraid of getting torpedoed as they left harbour, but I haven't found much evidence that it ever happened. Molentik posted:The subs did pretty well, and while technically not Navy, the Dutch merchant navy played a pretty important part in supplying the Allies in the war, with over 850 ships being pressed into service at the start of the war. About half of them were sunk during the war, but transports arent sexy so it's not well known sadly. On the topic of merchant navies, another military disaster of the Italians. quote:As of June 1940, the Italian merchant fleet comprised 786 ships with a gross tonnage exceeding 500 tons, for a total of 3,318,129 tons, and about 200 ships between 100 and 500 tons. As many as 212 ships, amounting to 1,216,637 tons, were stranded out of the Mediterranean when Italy declared war, and almost all of them were consequently captured or sunk by the enemy. Slim Jim Pickens fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 01:40
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Tomn posted:Speaking of Mahan, I'm currently reading The Influence of Sea Power Upon History. It's fairly interesting so far, and it's pretty funny to see how every other paragraph basically goes "Gosh, America, maybe you should take a few lessons from history and build yourself a goddamn navy already, jeez, are you guys thick or what?" I think Mahan is still taught at staff colleges today. But the US and Nato have such a huge percentage of the world's warships that it's kind of a moot point. Deep water navies are astoundingly expensive.
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Jan 23, 2015 01:48
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Taerkar posted:The US knew they had a huge industrial advantage over the Japanese. Part of the reason why Midway played out the way it was was because the US Admirals wanted to force an engagement with the Japanese, not that they had to be drawn out as the Japanese thought. Both sides were well aware that the Kido Butai would become irrelevant anyway when Halsey got his twenty fleet carriers to tool around with in the Central Pacific, so there was a desire to try to use what they had to go ahead and do some damage while it mattered.
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Jan 23, 2015 01:51
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bewbies posted:Very true; it was a high risk strategy that seemed to pay off big but ultimately backfired badly. Had the Japanese had just taken Singapore/Philippines and then forced the USN to fight a decisive battle on their end of the Pacific I think that 1) the American public wouldn't have been nearly so enthusiastic to pursue a war with Japan and 2) they'd have had a much better chance of winning a major battle or two. This is probably correct. The Pearl Harbor attack is interesting because, for three reasons, it arguably put the USN in a better position when it had its showdown with the IJN. First, it was a PR coup for Yamamoto, giving him significant leverage and impairing the ability of other Japanese officers to check his mistakes. (Prior to Midway, Yamamoto's opponents had balked about the prospect of striking out so close to Hawaii and so far from Japan's logistical base and land-based air cover--but Yamamoto's outsized prestige enabled him to quash the objections and push the Midway plan through.) Second, Pearl Harbor showed the USN what massed carrier-based airpower was capable of. Until then, the USN had stuck to the "Big Gun" philosophy that cast battleships as battle-deciding weapons and relegated carriers to support or raiding roles. Pearl Harbor taught the USN a critical lesson, and at a lesser cost than it seemed--because the battleships sunk in shallow friendly waters, many of them were eventually re-floated. Third, Pearl Harbor prevented the USN from rushing across the Pacific to relieve the Philippines. Here, time was on the USN's side--not only in terms of getting the massive American industrial machine in gear, but also getting aircrews up to speed. Actions like the USN's February 1942 raid on Rabaul helped to harden American pilots for the battles to come. Absent this experience, and in the face of Japanese land-based airpower, the USN would have faced a very difficult battle if it had moved immediately.
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Jan 23, 2015 01:52
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SquadronROE posted:Really good synopsis here, thanks. I think I might pick up that book too. The entire idea that things like damage control played so well into the overall war effort (and approaches to training) is something I had never considered. I suppose it's simply because I've always focused more on the Air Force side of things than the Navy, because now that I think about it dishing out and receiving damage are the two most basic things ships do. Well, and transport things across water obviously, but you could argue that a Battleship is just a really fancy gun carrier with some armor. See also: Jutland.
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Jan 23, 2015 03:15
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How many drops did a paratrooper make on average per tour?
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Jan 23, 2015 03:19
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Benny the Snake posted:How many drops did a paratrooper make on average per tour?
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Jan 23, 2015 03:36
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Arquinsiel posted:In which war?
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Jan 23, 2015 03:41
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backtracking to alternate history, I liked the What If? series edited by Robert Cowley. They've got some big name contributors like Anthony Beevor, James McPherson, and Alistair Horne.
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Jan 23, 2015 03:43
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Is there any good stuff on Audible for particular topics of military history? For giggles, I tried to look up Shattered Sword and got a bunch of D&D elfwars stuff.
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Jan 23, 2015 03:58
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Benny the Snake posted:Let's say WWII, for the sake of argument.
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Jan 23, 2015 04:01
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Arquinsiel posted:I actually know enough about WWII to answer that. Given the duration of a tour in WWII was, basically, "the duration" and the relatively low number of parachute operations conducted by any party, there's a pretty strong trend towards "one" being the number.
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Jan 23, 2015 04:04
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Benny the Snake posted:Welp, back to the drawing board *crumples up draft to Military Sci-Fi story* If it's Mil-SF, Mobile Infantry in Starship Troopers did lots of drops. So you're golden.
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Jan 23, 2015 04:09
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mllaneza posted:If it's Mil-SF, Mobile Infantry in Starship Troopers did lots of drops. So you're golden.
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Jan 23, 2015 04:13
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mllaneza posted:If it's Mil-SF, Mobile Infantry in Starship Troopers did lots of drops. So you're golden. 
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Jan 23, 2015 04:13
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Benny the Snake posted:How many drops did a paratrooper make on average per tour? The answer gets constrained by the fact that different formations just have less jumps. The average paratrooper in the US 17th Airborne only gets one jump into combat... because it's the only one his division ever did. If you're wondering about dangerous the jumps were, you'd have better luck just checking the individual operations, since there really aren't that many. On D-day, the 101st and 82nd Airborne lose a full half of all their soldiers, which is catastrophic. Their next drop is Market Garden, which is relatively quiet unless you've dropped in Arnhem.
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Jan 23, 2015 04:14
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Yeah, I'm writing a military sci-fi story and I'm a bit enamoured with the airborne. Something about jumping out of a goddamn plane into combat speaks volumes about the kind of balls these men have/had.
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Jan 23, 2015 04:15
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Ironically, often paratroopers get considered too valuable to lose doing their main purpose, and instead get used as elite regular infantry. I think Crete soured a lot of countries on actually making drops.
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Jan 23, 2015 04:18
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BurningStone posted:Ironically, often paratroopers get considered too valuable to lose doing their main purpose, and instead get used as elite regular infantry. I think Crete soured a lot of countries on actually making drops. Didn't the Soviets have some catastrophic (~100% casualties) paratrooper operation where they jumped into frozen conditions without supporting infantry or supplies? I think it was during the dark days of 1941, so it got swept up under the rug along with all the other disasters of that year.
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Jan 23, 2015 04:21
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:The answer gets constrained by the fact that different formations just have less jumps. The average paratrooper in the US 17th Airborne only gets one jump into combat... because it's the only one his division ever did. The Brothers in Arms games got that right (since they're basically a Band of Brothers game adaptation with the serial numbers filed off). If I remember correctly, Baker makes one semi-disastrous jump shortly before D-Day and then a glider landing for Market Garden and that's it. His guys just get shuttled around via ground transport for the rest of the war.
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Jan 23, 2015 04:23
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Alchenar posted:re: Japan. The problem they have is that the US has a giant unsinkable staging point right in the middle of the Pacific from which it can launch attacks at-will anywhere in the Pacific perimeter, which means never being able to present their conquests as a fait accompli. The best they can hope for is to catch all 4 carriers at Pearl Harbour and sink them, at which point they get a full year to rampage the Pacific effectively uncontested. The Battle of the Solomons and Midway don't happen, so Australia gets put under a ton of pressure. Ultimately you end up with a longer, more bloody war as the US has to attack through a much more entrenched Japanese Empire. That's actually the second problem for Japan. The first problem regarding giant unsinkable staging points right in the middle of things is the island of Luzon in the Philippines. Even if you conquer the resources of the DEI, if the Americans have Clark Field and the surrounding areas they can blockade you any time they want with the hundreds and hundreds of planes they were scheduled to have there by the middle of 1942. That's why the Japanese attacked the US at all - they knew they needed to conquer the Philippines to secure their shipping lanes with the resource area, and they figured the decisive battle would be when the US Pacific Fleet sallied forth to relieve the Philippines. It's worth giving them credit for actually accomplishing this major strategic objective - they just weren't ready for what came next after defeating the Pac Fleet's battleship line and conquering the Philippines. The pre-war grand strategic scheme expected surrender or peace at that point (as in the Russo-Japanese War) and instead they got the anger of the most mighty industrial power on the planet.
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Jan 23, 2015 04:32
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BurningStone posted:Ironically, often paratroopers get considered too valuable to lose doing their main purpose, and instead get used as elite regular infantry. I think Crete soured a lot of countries on actually making drops. Yeah, airborne drops ended up being really limited because simply dropping an airborne unit into an area behind enemy lines relying on them to take and hold territory on their own was basically suicide, so it had to be one element of a big huge undertaking where you have to have heavier conventional forces moving in quickly to come to their aid. No matter how highly trained they are, it's hard to make up for the disadvantages of having virtually no heavy weaponry and having to have your supplies air dropped in. Crete and Market Garden were bloodbaths that show what happens when paratroopers are dropped into places where they have to win the battle on their own against conventional forces (Crete) or the cavalry doesn't show up (Market Garden).
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Jan 23, 2015 04:39
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BurningStone posted:Ironically, often paratroopers get considered too valuable to lose doing their main purpose, and instead get used as elite regular infantry. I think Crete soured a lot of countries on actually making drops. Crete and Eben Emael were what prompted the Allies to develop their own paratroop divisions, but Crete did convince the Luftwaffe that paratroops weren't worth it as parachutists. Benny the Snake posted:Yeah, I'm writing a military sci-fi story and I'm a bit enamoured with the airborne. Something about jumping out of a goddamn plane into combat speaks volumes about the kind of balls these men have/had. The French 10th Parachute Division, though it only conducted one full drop during the Suez Crisis, conducted a number of small-scale drops during the Algerian War. So its soldiers would have multiple drops of experience on average.
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Jan 23, 2015 04:50
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gradenko_2000 posted:Did the Allies know that they were heading towards a huge material advantage? Was there a sense of "we're going them in Essex carriers just you wait" in planning Allied strategy? That's something I've never really been able to determine from my readings Ed Miller's War Plan Orange discusses this pretty thoroughly. Long story short is that American production superiority had been an integral part of the Navy's war plans since at least 1910 or so.
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Jan 23, 2015 04:52
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sullat posted:Didn't the Soviets have some catastrophic (~100% casualties) paratrooper operation where they jumped into frozen conditions without supporting infantry or supplies? I think it was during the dark days of 1941, so it got swept up under the rug along with all the other disasters of that year. It wasn't frozen conditions, they knew it would be a one way trip when they jumped. Like many units in the summer of 1941, they held a strategic location for as long as they could to allow larger and more effective units in the rear to form up and prepare.
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Jan 23, 2015 04:59
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sullat posted:Didn't the Soviets have some catastrophic (~100% casualties) paratrooper operation where they jumped into frozen conditions without supporting infantry or supplies? I think it was during the dark days of 1941, so it got swept up under the rug along with all the other disasters of that year. They dropped a full airborne corps during the early 1942 counter-offensives at Vyazma. It was a slightly larger version of Market Garden in terms of the overall reason it failed, but most noteworthy in that the partisan forces fought alongside the paratroops and were so devastated that partisan activity was completely shut down around Ryzev and Vyazma throughout the rest of the war.
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Jan 23, 2015 05:03
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The most number of combat jumps that an American regular would have done would be three right? Sicily, Normandy and Market Garden?
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Jan 23, 2015 05:34
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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PittTheElder posted:The most number of combat jumps that an American regular would have done would be three right? Sicily, Normandy and Market Garden? I think so, if you were part of the 82nd. I think the 101st only participated in Normandy and Market Garden. \/ That was a new division though. So unless some dude transferred there from the 82nd, that would have been their first combat drop. Saint Celestine fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 05:39
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PittTheElder posted:The most number of combat jumps that an American regular would have done would be three right? Sicily, Normandy and Market Garden? There was a big one in 45 punching across the Rhine.
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Jan 23, 2015 05:43
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PittTheElder posted:The most number of combat jumps that an American regular would have done would be three right? Sicily, Normandy and Market Garden? Four. The 509th Infantry Regiment dropped during Torch, two drops during the Italian campaign, and one during Dragoon. The 82nd also dropped at Salerno for a fourth combat drop. The 503rd PIR also conducted three combat drops during WW2, at Lae Nazdab, Noemfoor, and Corregidor in the Pacific.
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Jan 23, 2015 05:54
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BurningStone posted:Ironically, often paratroopers get considered too valuable to lose doing their main purpose, and instead get used as elite regular infantry. I think Crete soured a lot of countries on actually making drops. What makes paras more "elite" than chumps who don't get to fall out of planes? Benny the Snake posted:Yeah, I'm writing a military sci-fi story and I'm a bit enamoured with the airborne. Something about jumping out of a goddamn plane into combat speaks volumes about the kind of balls these men have/had. In Warhammer, Space Marines jump out of perfectly good space ships all the God(-Emperor) drat time. Mobile Infantry had to make that many jumps because they kept moving planet to planet. The jump that opens the book is basically a spec-ops drop, too.
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Jan 23, 2015 06:15
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JcDent posted:What makes paras more "elite" than chumps who don't get to fall out of planes? Paras are better-trained by virtue of learning how to jump out of planes and everything that goes with it, and in theory an airborne unit is capable of fighting effectively without needing as much artillery and armored support as a regular infantry. This is without deliberately making them elite formations.
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Jan 23, 2015 06:19
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Benny the Snake posted:How many drops did a paratrooper make on average per tour? The experience of paratroopers varied pretty widely from army to army. You've got everything from 82nd Airborne guys with three stars on their jump wings, to SS convict paratroopers whose only jump was the Operation Rösselsprung raid that almost nabbed Marshal Tito, to Japanese paratroopers who never made a combat drop (but fought plenty of battles nonetheless). A paratrooper's jump experience can be divided into two parts: training and combat. Five to ten jumps was a pretty typical training regimen. By 1942-1943, British airborne troops usually made nine descents during training, two from a balloon and the rest from aircraft. American paratroopers usually made six jumps from an aircraft (five day, one night), plus a series of practice jumps from a tower. As previous posters have noted, combat experience varied pretty widely. For soldiers who served the duration, it wasn't uncommon to make anywhere from one to three combat jumps. A particularly battle-hardened German Fallschrimjaeger might have had jumps in the Low Countries, Norway or Denmark, and Crete. 101st veterans would have dropped in Normandy and Holland. A few 101st guys even had three stars on their jump wings. Easy Company's Lewis Nixon did three combat jumps (Normandy, Holland, Operation Varsity). British airborne troops usually had one or two jumps (1st Airborne had Sicily and Arnhem, 6th Airborne only had Normandy), although stalwarts like John Frost had four (the Bruneval Raid, Torch, Sicily, and Arnhem). Here's some cool color pictures of British airborne training: http://ww2today.com/19th-october-1942-parachute-training-in-britain
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Jan 23, 2015 06:31
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It also helps that they're both more valuable than normal troops (because of the extra effort in training them etc) and they're usually volunteer units with very motivated soldiers. This means they get the absolute best equipment (usually) to maximise their effectiveness...at which point they become so valuable that more rigorous training standards are implemented to maximise this maximisation. They become defacto elite units just because of the amount of money/effort needed to train them in the first place and everything follows along behind that. Unless you're the soviets in which case I assume you just punt them out the back of the airplane like a reverse garbage truck and assume that x percent will die straight away.
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Jan 23, 2015 06:35
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Slavvy posted:It also helps that they're both more valuable than normal troops (because of the extra effort in training them etc) and they're usually volunteer units with very motivated soldiers. This means they get the absolute best equipment (usually) to maximise their effectiveness...at which point they become so valuable that more rigorous training standards are implemented to maximise this maximisation. The USSR actually maintained seven airborne divisions during the Cold War, and fully mechanized them with airdropped APCs, tanks, artillery, and logistics vehicles. By comparison, the US currently maintains one airborne division.
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Jan 23, 2015 06:40
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Also relevant is that if you tell people that a unit is elite and toughen up the requirements so as to weed out people who don't meet <arbitrary standard here> that are otherwise fit for service you tend to find that you get only the most physically and mentally suited soldiers actually bothering to sign up and stick out the selection process. "Eliteness" seems to be somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophesy. IIRC the US Airborne in WWII had an extra couple of weeks of training on top of the regular Basic which effectively doubled their training time until they were considered ready, and then post-training the units tended to be kept in reserve rather than thrown into the line so they spent the time waiting... in training.
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Jan 23, 2015 06:42
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JcDent posted:What makes paras more "elite" than chumps who don't get to fall out of planes? "Eliteness" really depended on the unit. As I mentioned earlier, the Germans created a unit that was basically the Nazi Dirty Dozen. For the most part, airborne units (I'm including glidermen in this, as well) were a cut above "leg" infantry units. There were several reasons for this. Firstly, with a few exceptions, most airborne units were all-volunteer. This meant the airborne attracted people who wanted to fight and who wanted to fight with the best. Regular infantry units had to make do with draftees, hurriedly-trained replacements, and a few volunteers. Bottom line, airborne units self-selected for highly-motivated people (which in turn lead to higher unit cohesion(. Secondly, airborne leaders made a conscious effort to glamorize airborne service. During training, airborne troopers were constantly told they were a breed apart and thus expected to be better than any other solider, friend or foe. The German airborne's "Ten Commandments" offer a good illustration of this mentality. German Parachutists' Ten Commandments posted:1. You are the chosen ones of the German Army. You shall seek combat and train yourselves to endure any manner of test. To you, battle shall be the fulfillment. The unique uniforms of paratroopers also helped cultivate this mentality of eliteness. The camouflage smocks, rimless helmets, and jump boots of paratroopers all had practical purposes, but they also psychologically set paratroopers apart from their landborne peers. I'd argue that an American paratrooper's jump wings, jump boots, and bloused pants not only looked different from his regular infantry counterparts, but also felt different. Thirdly, the airborne's physical standards and training were generally higher than those of other units. Tough PT, jump school, and constant combat exercises all hammered airborne soldiers into tough, well-conditioned soldiers and greatly boosted unit cohesion. Furthermore, many airborne units had a lot more training and rest time than most other infantry units. For one, the training cycle of airborne soldiers was longer than that of leg infantrymen. Even rookie airborne soldiers were generally well-prepared for battle once the day of days came. Plus, airborne units were something of a strategic asset. Commanders (at least Allied ones) would frequently pull them off the line to let them refit and rest before making their next drop. The average infantry division didn't have that luxury. Near-constant combat makes veterans, but it also wears units down. The airborne cycle of fight-rest-fight allowed them to gain combat experience but also gave them time to lick their wounds and reorganize. There was a good reason for this mental and physical conditioning. Airborne units had a very, very difficult job: drop behind enemy lines with light weapons then take ground and hold it until relieved. And do this all while under heavy attack from a better-armed, better-supplied enemy force. Effectronica posted:The USSR actually maintained seven airborne divisions during the Cold War, and fully mechanized them with airdropped APCs, tanks, artillery, and logistics vehicles. By comparison, the US currently maintains one airborne division. Yes, there's the 82nd Airborne. But there's also 25th ID's 4th Brigade Airborne Combat Team and the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team. Not to mention the 75th Ranger Regiment, which is also airborne-capable.
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Jan 23, 2015 07:26
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Bacarruda posted:Yes, there's the 82nd Airborne. But there's also 25th ID's 4th Brigade Airborne Combat Team and the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team. Not to mention the 75th Ranger Regiment, which is also airborne-capable.  </nitpick>
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Jan 23, 2015 07:39
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"8. You must grasp the full purpose of every enterprise, so that if your leader is killed you can fulfill it." So that's where FoW got their Geman Mission Tactics (well, I assume Germans followed it in general, but I've never seen it spelled out). Osprey's Elite Forces of WP detail Russian para history to some extent. They were probably the earliest adopters (dropping dudes in what, 1937?) and shittiest adopters (judging by how bad it went and how forgotten Russia WWII paras are). And yeah, judging by everything, VDV occupies a place in Russian heart like not unit (maybe except for Marine Corps) does in American hearts. I'm curious if the British are particularly proud of any unit, branch or service. Oh, and on Americans: doesn't "airborne" mean "helos all around" these days?
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Jan 23, 2015 07:55
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