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BurningStone posted:Modern deep battle or air/land battle concepts try to encircle, but the pockets are miles across, like you see in WW2. No individual solder can look around and say "Oh God, we're trapped." In Hey Gal's period you could stand in one place and see every combatant for both sides at once, at least if there wasn't too much smoke or weather. Indeed, if you're doing maneuver warfare well, the enemy shouldn't be thinking "oh gently caress we're trapped", because they'll be too busy trying to figure out what the gently caress is even happening. Particularly if you're already winning, it's got to be crazy demoralizing to the other side, because they know they don't have access to reinforcements or resupply, so if the enemy chooses to show up in their sector, they're hosed. Better to avoid the enemy however possible.
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Jan 25, 2015 08:36
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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HEY GAL posted:No they're not; you simply offer quarter and then wait to get released, ransomed and then released, or enlisted into their army. Mistreating the defeated (unless they're wounded and left on the field) and fighting to the last man are both incredibly rare in my period. Unless you're a besieged place that fell in combat rather than surrendering. Then the laws of war say anything can be done to you and nobody will care. In 16th c Ireland you get hanged if you surrender. It's like the English had discovered the concept of just kill everyone and thought it was the greatest thing ever. Massacre at Smerwick
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Jan 25, 2015 09:01
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Rabhadh posted:In 16th c Ireland you get hanged if you surrender. It's like the English had discovered the concept of just kill everyone and thought it was the greatest thing ever. quote:After a three-day siege, commander di San Giuseppe surrendered on 10 November 1580. Grey ordered the massacre of the invading forces, sparing only the commanders....According to [some] versions Grey promised the garrison their lives in return for their surrender, a promise which he broke and resulted in the Irish proverb 'Grey's faith'. The few that were spared suffered a worse fate. They were offered life if they would renounce their Catholic faith, and on refusal had their arms and legs broken in three places by an ironsmith. They were left in agony for a day and night and then hanged. Ideology is gross, best to not care about anything.
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Jan 25, 2015 09:13
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Raenir Salazar posted:Art of War mentions this as well, always leave an opening so they'll retreat out and they won't fight to the last man. Rokosovssky I've heard was fond of this as well. Literally the next line of art of war is 'don't actually leave an opening, just the perception of one'. Sun tzu was very much in favour of envelopment as the ultimate tactic if you could pull it off.
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Jan 25, 2015 09:24
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Cythereal posted:I've started reading Castles of Steel and am enjoying it quite a lot after Shattered Sword. It's much broader in focus and pays significantly more attention to the personality and history of the admirals and civilian leaders involved, but it's a good read. Von Spee's squadron sounds ready-made for a modern Hollywood movie, complete with hope spot at Coronel and the tragic but inevitable end at the Falklands. There is also a bit which could have come straight out of a bad Hollywood movie where the plucky hero has crucial info but is blocked by a dumb superior. Room 40 Radio Intelligence: "We're intercepting a lot radio traffic using Admiral Scheer's in-harbor callsign" Navy officer: "Excellent ! I'll let the Admiralty know the German fleet is in port." Room 40: "Well, we know the Germans do this to trick us." Officer: "You civilians let the professionals do the work, you can't possibly understand all the implications of intercepted signals."
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Jan 25, 2015 09:27
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Frostwerks posted:This guy is a really good writer or the guy who translated him his either or perhaps even both. The start of that third paragraph is kinda evocative of Ambrose Bierce. Curiously enough, there are traits in his writing that either don't become visible until you read a larger part of the book, or are bad writing in Polish, but less so in English, namely repeating words and ideas. But nevertheless he was a good writer, I tried to preserve his unique vocabulary wherever possible (e.g. moloch over idol). So it's mostly him. But thanks, anyway. I might translate the entire thing over the summer if I won't happen to have a job, and try to get a Russian-speaking friend on board to translate Tukhachevsky's March Across the Vistula, since the two should really be read in tandem. Also very few people care much about the war of 1920, but it was in no small part a formative experience for the Red Army as well, and Tukhachevsky specifically.
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Jan 25, 2015 10:36
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Tevery Best posted:Curiously enough, there are traits in his writing that either don't become visible until you read a larger part of the book, or are bad writing in Polish, but less so in English, namely repeating words and ideas. But nevertheless he was a good writer, I tried to preserve his unique vocabulary wherever possible (e.g. moloch over idol). So it's mostly him. But thanks, anyway. I might translate the entire thing over the summer if I won't happen to have a job, and try to get a Russian-speaking friend on board to translate Tukhachevsky's March Across the Vistula, since the two should really be read in tandem. Also very few people care much about the war of 1920, but it was in no small part a formative experience for the Red Army as well, and Tukhachevsky specifically. Lithuanians care 
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Jan 25, 2015 10:45
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JcDent posted:Lithuanians care I meant in the decadent West.
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Jan 25, 2015 11:27
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More thoughts onRincewind posted:Did the different belligerents have different styles of trenches, or did the British, Germans, French, et al all converge on the same general trench philosophy? Completely different. The basic problem of the Western Front on December 1 1914 is like this. Zee Germans are sitting on large and valuable parts of northern France (plenty of good aggercultural land, rich coal-mining country, and regional manufacturing centres), and almost all of Belgium. They've seen how difficult attacking is. They don't have to do jack poo poo. They're already in a massively advantageous position In strict military terms, they can just sit there and wait for the Entente to try to buy them off at the negotiating table while they get stuck into the Russians. (Like so many other things in the war, it nearly worked!) Therefore, they are going to sit on every hill, butte, hillock, mesa, ridge, rise, height, and knoll that they can possibly find, dig deep, and then put up a noticeboard on the wire saying "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough". They're building positions to hold indefinitely. Lines upon lines upon lines. Four lines deep, five lines deep, six lines deep. With another reserve trench system a few hundred metres behind it, half-prepared, ready to be dug out properly at a few hours' notice. Barbed-wire forests in front, ten metres deep at least. At some time soon, some clever bastard is going to invent a defensive arrangement that I can best describe as "A weaponised haha with barbed wire in the bottom that advancing troops can't see until they nearly fall in it." Dugouts far deeper than any shell can reach. Dugouts with electricity in, often installed as soon as October or November 1914. Their trenches are also relatively wide so the Entente can't just drive a tractor or an armoured car over the top of them. (There's a lot of people thinking very literally, and trying to invent some sort of bridging machine.) Britain and France have no intention of trying to settle; the cost of buying the invaders off will be far too great, they have the blockade, etc. So they have to try to remove them by force. Problem 1: In order to attack the Germans, you must be right up under their noses (100 yards or less, for preference, or at least close enough to sap jumping-off trenches to that distance). If they're on a hill, you therefore need to be at the bottom of the hill. It's no good sitting 800 yards away so the blokes can have a smoke in safety and avoid all the water running downhill when it rains. You'll never cross No Man's Land in enough time when you attack. Which you will do. This all obliges you to dig your trenches on ground that is, ahem, less than entirely favourable. Problem 2: What's the point of building a really nice trench, and then having the Big Push and leaving it a few miles in your rear? The French continued this philosophy so far that they didn't really bother with things like building any facilities for the blokes in their rear areas until 1916; they were quartered in villages if they were lucky, or left in the open air if not. Also, it was thought digging in properly might affect the blokes' offensive spirit (insert hollow laughter). Dugouts (or even sandbags) were often hard to come by, zig-zagging could be more a suggestion than a requirement, etc. British philosophy was basically the same, but even in early 1915 they built generally better trenches for the meantime (since any idiot can be uncomfortable, and having proper defences saves lives so you can have more people to attack), and the brass hats preferred to bolster offensive spirit by encouraging plenty of patrolling and raids between battles. ("This is the question every platoon commander should ask himself: am I as offensive as I might be?") This is the killer photo. No prizes for guessing where Zee Germans are. 
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Jan 25, 2015 11:28
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HEY GAL posted:In my period, that would be regarded as imprudent. Of course, in my period, you get generals who end up being famous for well-conducted retreats or rearguard actions, so... Re: Back to the River. It was a very standard Roman tactic to fight with the river anchoring one flank. When you want to meatgrinder a motherfucker with heavy infantry and not have to worry about cavalry flanking on one side, this kind of thing is ideal.
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Jan 25, 2015 15:02
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And in other news, Otto Carious died yesterday at the ripe age of 92 years. There goes a piece of history. 
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Jan 25, 2015 15:03
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Magni posted:And in other news, Otto Carious died yesterday at the ripe age of 92 years. There goes a piece of history. Yeah, I feel inordinately sad about him. So do milhist 4channers, as far as I've seen.
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Jan 25, 2015 15:55
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How was he ideologically? That will determine how sad (or happy) I will feel.
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Jan 25, 2015 15:56
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Animal posted:How was he ideologically? That will determine how sad (or happy) I will feel. Depends on how anti-fa you are. If you're high, then he's a no good dirty nazi, good riddance. If you're not crazy, then the guy reached his peak tankhood at the age of 23 (I think) and then spent his life working in a drug store (awesomely named drugstore), and didn't really say anything nazi-like (unlike that one German flying ace, who never stopped Nazi-ing).
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Jan 25, 2015 16:05
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Animal posted:How was he ideologically? That will determine how sad (or happy) I will feel. IIRC, Himmler personally offered Carius a transfer to the Waffen-SS in 1943 and told him that he'd be a captain-equivalent within the month. Carius flat-out declined and walked back to his unit. He never made it past Leutnant in the Wehrmacht and Oberleutnant (LT 1st class equivalent) of the reserves in the Bundeswehr - he declined to go back into active service after the war, wrote a pretty good book about his experiences and spent the rest of his days running a pharmacy.
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Jan 25, 2015 17:14
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CeeJee posted:There is also a bit which could have come straight out of a bad Hollywood movie where the plucky hero has crucial info but is blocked by a dumb superior. The British are not the heroes.  I got up through the assault on the Dardanelles (but not yet Gallipoli) before going to bed last night, and parts of this stuff are hard to believe with how farcical and lucky a lot of events are.
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Jan 25, 2015 17:36
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JcDent posted:Depends on how anti-fa you are. I dunno, there is a part in Tigers in the Mud where he flat out makes jokes about war crimes. And he seems to really not understand why people would be less than thankful for the job the Wehrmacht did in fighting the war. Apparently he did manage to not make himself a rallying point for the far right, so good on him.
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Jan 25, 2015 17:40
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ArchangeI posted:I dunno, there is a part in Tigers in the Mud where he flat out makes jokes about war crimes. And he seems to really not understand why people would be less than thankful for the job the Wehrmacht did in fighting the war. Apparently he did manage to not make himself a rallying point for the far right, so good on him. Oh, so like Saburo Sakai, huh? Ha.
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Jan 25, 2015 18:45
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Effectronica posted:Oh, so like Saburo Sakai, huh? Ha. I've read his book, I don't recall him making war crime jokes or otherwise defending Japan's actions. 
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Jan 25, 2015 18:52
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Raenir Salazar posted:I've read his book, I don't recall him making war crime jokes or otherwise defending Japan's actions. He denied the existence of comfort women on multiple occasions.
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Jan 25, 2015 18:57
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Tevery Best posted:Curiously enough, there are traits in his writing that either don't become visible until you read a larger part of the book, or are bad writing in Polish, but less so in English, namely repeating words and ideas. But nevertheless he was a good writer, I tried to preserve his unique vocabulary wherever possible (e.g. moloch over idol). So it's mostly him. But thanks, anyway. I might translate the entire thing over the summer if I won't happen to have a job, and try to get a Russian-speaking friend on board to translate Tukhachevsky's March Across the Vistula, since the two should really be read in tandem. Also very few people care much about the war of 1920, but it was in no small part a formative experience for the Red Army as well, and Tukhachevsky specifically. Is it possible that he'd just seen Metropolis and his use of moloch comes from there?
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Jan 25, 2015 19:15
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Very unlikely.
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Jan 25, 2015 19:56
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Trin Tragula posted:Trenches. This is what I don't understand. They had aerial photography. They knew exactly how extensive the German defences were, so there's no argument of ignorance. How could anyone look at that and still convince themselves that mass infantry assault was a viable plan? What exactly did they hope to achieve, when after the first few attempts the line barely moved and tens of thousands of casualties were inflicted?
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Jan 25, 2015 21:12
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This time is different because <plan to defeat defenses>.
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Jan 25, 2015 21:28
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JcDent posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk Ghetto Prince fucked around with this message at 10:47 on Jan 11, 2016 |
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Jan 25, 2015 21:28
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Stop baiting me by talking about this video.
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Jan 25, 2015 21:32
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Slavvy posted:What exactly did they hope to achieve, when after the first few attempts the line barely moved and tens of thousands of casualties were inflicted? To move Marshall Haig's drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin.
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Jan 25, 2015 21:32
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Slavvy posted:This is what I don't understand. They had aerial photography. They knew exactly how extensive the German defences were, so there's no argument of ignorance. How could anyone look at that and still convince themselves that mass infantry assault was a viable plan? What exactly did they hope to achieve, when after the first few attempts the line barely moved and tens of thousands of casualties were inflicted? The major attacks like the Somme were not mass infantry assaults. They were artillery led attacks, with the belief that the artillery would clear the way. Post bombardment aerial photography showed desolate moonscapes they thought no one could survive in. Further, while mass casualties were taken, they were also inflicted. The Germans also had to pull reinforcements from elsewhere. Because the allies had much more manpower than the Germans, inconclusive bloodbaths were not necessarily totally a bad thing.
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Jan 25, 2015 21:49
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100 Years Ago Things are starting to go a bit pear-shaped for John Chilembwe. Meanwhile, I've found something I was meaning to reference yesterday; a subaltern with the 2nd Leinsters gives a wonderful example of the kind of directions required to get up the line from one's rest billet, and the misadventures that could be had while following them. (More on trench navigation to follow.) Oh, and there may be a war on, but that doesn't mean the people of Britain should be denied an opportunity to trial a piano for three months before committing to buy it, by Gad! Slavvy posted:This is what I don't understand. They had aerial photography. They knew exactly how extensive the German defences were, so there's no argument of ignorance. How could anyone look at that and still convince themselves that mass infantry assault was a viable plan? What exactly did they hope to achieve, when after the first few attempts the line barely moved and tens of thousands of casualties were inflicted? This is something I'm going to be teasing out over the next year; but simply put, the story of BEF offensives on the Western Front from 1915 to 1917 is: xthetenth posted:This time is different because <plan to defeat defenses>. There are points during every offensive from Neuve Chapelle to Third Ypres when the situation was such that it was theoretically possible for the battle to be a complete success that could have seriously altered the course of the war; and then something somewhere went wrong, and they couldn't quite follow up on the initially very promising situation. It was very possible even in 1915 to capture an entire position of trenches and have a foothold from which to press on - the problems were entirely in exploiting that situation further. So, if only we can just learn from the specific things we've done wrong and make some changes, surely next time... Much as it's a memorable image, there is no major BEF offensive that started this way. (Of course, it doesn't need to be strictly historically accurate to make the symbolic point it's trying to make.) Some of them ended like that, but the only example I've come across of a major attack where the first wave of blokes were literally mowed down in ranks as they went over the top was the Battle of the Nek on Gallipoli, which is a completely different kettle of fish. This is one of the major misconceptions about the first day on the Somme - everyone knows about the sectors where the Pals crossed No Man's Land and died horribly in front of uncut barbed wire, but nobody knows about the many sectors (IIRC mostly to the south of the offensive) where everything went very much according to plan, and they achieved their Day 1 objectives and pushed on the following day. (Pointing out things like this is what revisionists are good for, as is the observation that regardless of how far they advanced, just by having the battle they unquestionably succeeded in stopping the Germans throwing the kitchen sink at Verdun.) This is the real tragedy. It's not that these offensives couldn't possibly have achieved their objectives. It's that they might have done, if only...and so it was never obvious what a major revolution in strategy would be required to finally fight and win a breakthrough battle. That's why it took until 1918 to arrive at the Battle of Amiens, which could theoretically have happened two years earlier if people hadn't kept innocently going down blind alleys and getting caught up in "we must do something, this is something, we must do this".
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Jan 25, 2015 22:55
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Trin Tragula posted:More thoughts on Whoa, that aerial photo is nuts.
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Jan 25, 2015 22:57
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Animal posted:How was he ideologically? That will determine how sad (or happy) I will feel. He was quite fond of Russians and their culture and actively dismissed the kill claims attributed to him and other German tank aces as propaganda.
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Jan 25, 2015 23:39
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Ensign Expendable posted:He was quite fond of Russians and their culture and actively dismissed the kill claims attributed to him and other German tank aces as propaganda. RIP Otto Carious 
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Jan 26, 2015 00:38
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That's depressing. Let us consider, instead, some swagged out dudes and their portraits. Back in August 2014, the Frick had an exhibition of two paintings, one by Scipione Pulzone of Jacopo Boncompagni, and the other by El Greco of Vincenzo Anastagi. This is Boncompagni. Painted 1574.  Governor of Castel Sant'Angelo, leader of the pontifical army, and--by purest coincidence I am sure--bastard of the current pope. His portrait is by the most sought-after portraitist in Rome, and it's in a style these people loved: clear, precise, almost tromp l'oeil. But I can't really see that sensitive and intelligent face on someone thundering down a field in defense of his father's political agenda. And look at what he's holding: in one hand a piece of correspondence and in the other, instead of a rod of office, a diplomatic dispatch case. Wikipedia says that he "was a patron of arts and culture. Pierluigi da Palestrina dedicated to him the first book of Madrigals...He was also a lover of the theatre and of chess." That seems about right. His last name is what his father's had been before he took his regnal name (Jacopo was legitimized) but even that is chill--it means "good comrades." Rabadh, if the second Desmond rebellion had succeeded, behold the face of your new king. This is Anastagi. Painted 1575.  He's not a very noble noble, but he is an experienced infantry officer, and Boncompagni has just appointed him sergeant-major of Castel Sant'Angelo. Perhaps, says the New York Times, this is why he had his portrait done. And consider what it's of: a tough officer, at the peak of his craft. The sash for his sword, the ribbons on his helmet, the belt that holds his breastplate and his backplate together, his tasset buckles, and even the fabric lining his armor (as far as I know, in this period it just goes straight over your jacket, which can be uncomfortable, so die da oben put padded cloth on the inside of their armor--you can see some of it peek out beneath the pauldrons) all match, and they all match his pants. But those are the shoes of a man who knows what his job entails. Plain leather, low heels, tied with ribbons as utilitarian as the garters that hold up his sturdy stockings. But imagine commissioning this thing and then receiving the finished product, because it might be of an Italian nobleman but it's not about that at all, it's about paint and what it means to put paint on a canvas. Look at the light on Anastagi's armor, the curtain in the background, that wall and floor. You've requested a little soliloquy on who you are and why you own and you've just gotten some Greek weirdo musing about the distance between an art's medium and its subject matter--it's like expecting a formal portrait and getting Nude Descending a Staircase. The target audience would not like it, because for people like Anastagi that's not what painting does. Not to mention that a full-length portrait of someone of his low social rank (especially when his new boss just had only a three-quarter portrait done?) is...inadvisable. In 1756 El Greco left Rome. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/22/arts/design/men-in-armor-el-greco-and-pulzone-at-the-frick-collection.html HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Jan 26, 2015 |
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Jan 26, 2015 01:45
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Ok, so what sort of casualty ratio was considered 'normal' for a successful phase of the offensive? Cause with such well prepared positions, fortified dugouts and endless lines of trenches to fall back into I can't imagine the germans taking too many casualties. I realise the artillery bombardments were just tremendous, but in terms of actual guys killing other guys with guns/shovels/whatever I don't see how the defenders could lose that many men. I don't understand how clawing your way through trench after trench, individually taking minor strong-points in tactical infantry combat could ever have been expected to lead to a wildly successful breakout operation when there was effectively no means of moving troops faster than ad hoc fortifications could be constructed by the defender. On top of which there's the lovely communications etc. I have no difficulty visualising the battalion-level tactics of WW2 and the way they scaled up into the strategic ebb and flow but WW1 just seems really baffling and senseless. Was he expected to walk in that attire and, if so, how far and how fast?
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Jan 26, 2015 01:57
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Slavvy posted:Was he expected to walk in that attire and, if so, how far and how fast?
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Jan 26, 2015 02:02
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I was meaning more his...trouser...things.
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Jan 26, 2015 02:06
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Slavvy posted:I was meaning more his...trouser...things.
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Jan 26, 2015 02:09
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That doesn't look like it would impede walking much, unless you're in a forest or something.
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Jan 26, 2015 02:09
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They're pretty comfortable. You make fabric noises when you walk though.
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Jan 26, 2015 02:11
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Slavvy posted:Ok, so what sort of casualty ratio was considered 'normal' for a successful phase of the offensive? Cause with such well prepared positions, fortified dugouts and endless lines of trenches to fall back into I can't imagine the germans taking too many casualties. I recommend you check out Battle Tactics of the Western Front, a very in-depth book on British infantry tactics and how they changed throughout the war based on lessons learned and technology. Also covers artillery, gas, tanks and other combined arms factors. It's not perfect - I'd have appreciated more first-hand stories from the trenchies told by Tommies, as you read in some of the letters home and diaries collections - but from the staff and training perspective, it's very well documented and comprehensive.
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