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Wow, that's a really good answer. Thanks! PittTheElder posted:It was short Jesus, you're right. I checked and Korea was only 3, but Vietnam went on for 19 years!? That's horrific.
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Feb 6, 2015 04:36
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WickedHate posted:I'm curious about something. Why is the Korean War represented in media so much less then Vietnam? Granted, I'm not that into war movies, so I might be underestimating, but it seems like Vietnam is burned into pop culture and the public consciousness way more then the similar war that came before it. I think it falls into this valley where it's not as clearly a moral pursuit (it was like this weird series of diplomatic tiptoe maneuvers until Marshall let Macarthur out of his kennel and all hell broke loose once China crossed the Yalu) as WWII but not as hosed up as Vietnam. On the other hand, M*A*S*H was set in Korea despite nearly everyone believing it was set in 'Nam for obvious reasons. WickedHate posted:Jesus, you're right. I checked and Korea was only 3, but Vietnam went on for 19 years!? That's horrific. 19 years is a drop in the bucket against all the war Vietnam has seen. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Feb 6, 2015 |
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Feb 6, 2015 04:37
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FAUXTON posted:I think it falls into this valley where it's not as clearly a moral pursuit (it was like this weird series of diplomatic tiptoe maneuvers until Marshall let Macarthur out of his kennel and all hell broke loose once China crossed the Yalu) as WWII but not as hosed up as Vietnam. On the other hand, M*A*S*H was set in Korea despite nearly everyone believing it was set in 'Nam for obvious reasons. It was in many ways a show about Nam.
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Feb 6, 2015 04:50
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stranger danger posted:WWI question: if attacking fortified enemy trenches is clearly an incredibly costly proposition with little to no upside, why not just stay put and only counterattack portions of your own line that have been taken (i.e. when you have a really good chance of success)? I can see how doing that for the French would be politically unacceptable and that this would draw the British in, but what about the Germans? Were they just like "gently caress it, we gotta do something before the blockade ruins us"? The Germans did do some of this. First, look at the difference in the German trenches Trin has posted - the Germans were planning to more sit back defend clearly. Second, my understanding is that the point of the Battle of Verdun was to do just that - force the French to attack spots they had no realistic chance of taking without getting massively bled.
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Feb 6, 2015 04:55
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xthetenth posted:It was in many ways a show about Nam. Yeah, the original plan for the movie was to set it in Nam, but the producers decided that was too immediate and controversial. They set it in Korea to give it some temporal distance, but the issues it (and the subsequent TV series) dealt with were pure Nam.
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Feb 6, 2015 04:56
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WickedHate posted:Wow, that's a really good answer. Thanks! It should be noted though that serious American involvement took place over a much shorter period, between Tonkin (1964) and the Paris Accords (1973). The famous political protest movement in the States corresponds to about that same period. Prior to Tonkin there were only some 16,000 US troops in Vietnam, compared to the half million that would be there by '68. ulmont posted:The Germans did do some of this. First, look at the difference in the German trenches Trin has posted - the Germans were planning to more sit back defend clearly. Second, my understanding is that the point of the Battle of Verdun was to do just that - force the French to attack spots they had no realistic chance of taking without getting massively bled. What exactly the German staff had planned remains A Matter of Some Debate I believe. I think the prevailing opinion now is that Falkenhayn thought he could achieve a genuine war-ending breakthrough there, and then transitioned to saying that it was always intended to be a battle of attrition. Ultimately the Germans lost nearly as many men as the French did. Speaking of which, what happened to Trin? PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Feb 6, 2015 |
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Feb 6, 2015 05:06
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Yeah, I'm missing my daily dose of WWI! Oh, and you'd think Americans would bring up Korea a lot more to support interventionism. I mean, you have Best Korea as a good example of what would have happened if US/UN had not intervened right there!
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Feb 6, 2015 05:22
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Mortabis posted:There's another snag here, which is that those 25 missions are not even remotely independent trials. If you survive 10 missions, your per mission survival rate is going to be higher than 96.2%. So really 38% is a probably a rather low figure. I remember hearing/reading somewhere that the chance of survival increased after the first few missions but then dropped down again near the end of the missions.
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Feb 6, 2015 05:39
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Here, I found some tanks http://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/27-images-captured-sherman-tanks-german-hands.html
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Feb 6, 2015 09:02
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Kanine posted:drat, this reminds me that I actually really want a gritty modern war telling of the Eugenics Wars from Star Trek's canon. It would be loving amazing. You should check out The Forgotten War. It isn't the Eugenic Wars per se (the canon version of that story is very much a product of the Cold War, and is mostly filled with secret agents and cover-ups rather than gritty battlefields) but it is definitely what you're looking for. Basically a Starfleet vessel and a Tarn battlecruiser commit a simultaneous KO, both land their escape pods on a desert hellhole of a planet but are thought to have been lost with all hands. Out of communication with their homeworlds, and extremely technologically limited, both keep fighting tooth and nail long after the war has officially ended. Picard enters the picture and tries to get them to stop fighting after a couple generations of this, and the Starfleet folks are all like, "Great! Give us combat phaser rifles and air assault craft so we can murder the Tarn bastards and get off this rock!" It's filled with all the gritty chemical warfare and bloody trench fighting that you might want, and has a pretty satisfying ending. http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Forgotten_War
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Feb 6, 2015 09:14
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The name of the lost Starfleet ship is the USS Verdun, that's pretty on the nose there.
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Feb 6, 2015 10:14
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stranger danger posted:WWI question: if attacking fortified enemy trenches is clearly an incredibly costly proposition with little to no upside, why not just stay put and only counterattack portions of your own line that have been taken (i.e. when you have a really good chance of success)? I can see how doing that for the French would be politically unacceptable and that this would draw the British in, but what about the Germans? Were they just like "gently caress it, we gotta do something before the blockade ruins us"? This was pretty much their strategy in the West for the whole of 1915 and 1917 while they got stuck into Russia. There is at least a little debate over whether Falkenhayn's "yeah I was trying to bleed the French army white" thing for Verdun was actually an after-the-fact rationalisation of failure to break through. I'm not convinced, but IIRC the papers and orders that would conclusively answer the question are among those that were lost in the next war. The problem is that a lot of his subordinates wanted a breakthrough if they were going to fight, and the question becomes whether some of the things that happened, which can be seen as what you'd do for a breakthrough battle rather than an attritional one, had been planned by Falkenhayn, or if they were taking a Russian approach to their actual orders. (This is about the point where I get bored and start jonesing for some funny stories about e.g. Ottoman troops on Gallipoli literally stealing the Australians' barbed wire from in front of their trenches.) The 1918 offensive wasn't just because of the blockade biting, although that was an important factor; they also suddenly had lashings of extra manpower available from defeating Russia and they had at most a year to do something positive with it before enough Americans showed up to balance it out. The whole chain of circumstances around Russia leaving the war and America joining it are such a hilarious clusterfuck from a German perspective. (100 Years Ago resumes later today when I get back to my books.) Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 11:20 on Feb 6, 2015 |
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Feb 6, 2015 11:08
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 "Hey, freunde, maybe that's enough tracks..." "HANZ DU SWEINHUNDE DU LAY MORE TRACKS ON THE BEAUTEPANZER BEFORE I REPORT YOU"
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Feb 6, 2015 11:16
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Trin Tragula posted:This was pretty much their strategy in the West for the whole of 1915 and 1917 while they got stuck into Russia. There is at least a little debate over whether Falkenhayn's "yeah I was trying to bleed the French army white" thing for Verdun was actually an after-the-fact rationalisation of failure to break through. I'm not convinced, but IIRC the papers and orders that would conclusively answer the question are among those that were lost in the next war. The problem is that a lot of his subordinates wanted a breakthrough if they were going to fight, and the question becomes whether some of the things that happened, which can be seen as what you'd do for a breakthrough battle rather than an attritional one, had been planned by Falkenhayn, or if they were taking a Russian approach to their actual orders. (This is about the point where I get bored and start jonesing for some funny stories about e.g. Ottoman troops on Gallipoli literally stealing the Australians' barbed wire from in front of their trenches.) Also, I think the idea of 'doing nothing' in the war makes sense only really in retrospect, though it was, in fact, tried by Trotsky when he didn't like the way Brest-Litovsk was going. Had Kerensky tried a passive approach, he might have had a more long-lasting government. That all being said, this was from a country that was trying to find a way out of the war. France and Britain were looking to win the war. They didn't know, and couldn't really know whether the blockade would knock Germany out of the war itself, so they felt they had to try to win the war on the ground in France or in the various side theatres. There was a real desire to open up more fronts, but this was mostly unsuccessful.
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Feb 6, 2015 11:43
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Hauldren Collider posted:I'm guessing Bewbies came up with his number by doing 100% - (3.8*25). Which is awesome, because it means that if they do 2 more flights--27 instead of 25--the chance of survival plunges to an astounding negative 2.6%. I'm starting to finally understand F-35  .
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Feb 6, 2015 11:53
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bewbies posted:I don't know if this has ever been posted but it is circulating through the DoD right now and it is pretty funny. It is authentic as far as I know; it was released a few years ago. This is really good stuff. I didn't know that there were so many saboteurs around me.
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Feb 6, 2015 13:09
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JcDent posted:
Why is there a balkenkreuz on a Firefly driven by a British crew? Some weird attempt at deception or a perpetual trophy tank that had switched sides twice already?
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Feb 6, 2015 14:41
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Japan had the best torpedo (early) in the war why did they failed at submarine warfare?
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Feb 6, 2015 14:41
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Trench_Rat posted:Japan had the best torpedo (early) in the war why did they failed at submarine warfare?
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Feb 6, 2015 14:44
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Nenonen posted:Why is there a balkenkreuz on a Firefly driven by a British crew? Some weird attempt at deception or a perpetual trophy tank that had switched sides twice already? They are part of the WW2 Hipster Squad.
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Feb 6, 2015 14:45
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Trench_Rat posted:Japan had the best torpedo (early) in the war why did they failed at submarine warfare? You might be thinking of a different torpedo - the Type 93 was a surface launched torpedo and it gets all the credit. Plus it was hands down the best torpedo throughout the war other than the catastrophic secondary explosions thing. However, the subs were using a baby version called the Type 95, which had most of the same benefits and drawbacks in a smaller package. Less punch on the warhead, though. The reason that Japanese submarines weren't "effective" is doctrine. Japanese submarine doctrine was for the submarine fleet to operate in conjunction with light surface ships and long range patrol aircraft to whittle down the American battle fleet as it crossed the pacific. Then they would join in with the Combined Fleet for the mother of all furballs. It would have been pretty badass. Even when that didn't work out quite as intended, the Japanese were still wedded to the submarine as an equalizing weapon that could help bring parity between the respective surface fleets. They did not view submarines as a primarily anti-commerce weapon - attacks on merchant shipping were somewhat opportunistic and were not part of a larger strategic policy. Japanese submarine warfare wasn't a total failure (Sunk the Wasp, laid up the Saratoga for a good whole, sunk a few cruisers and such), but certainly the relatively high quality submarines of the A and B class could have been employed much more effectively. e:f,b but I have some more details or what not
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Feb 6, 2015 14:52
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It's hard to see how the Japanese could have established an economic blockade of the US, anyway.
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Feb 6, 2015 14:59
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Trin Tragula posted:(100 Years Ago resumes later today when I get back to my books.) I'm glad it's coming back! I always like seeing a new 100 Years Ago post every day. 
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Feb 6, 2015 15:07
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 "Ambush by snowballs from our seniors at the Military College in Québec Canada while moving desks after exams. We built a phalanx."   Commanding Colonel: ".... You all pass..."
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Feb 6, 2015 15:07
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Fangz posted:It's hard to see how the Japanese could have established an economic blockade of the US, anyway. Economic blockade of supply depot Australia or harassing supplies going to Guadalcanal would have been pretty annoying. Not game-breakingly so, but enough to slow down the advance into the Pacific.
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Feb 6, 2015 15:08
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Raenir Salazar posted:
Fail - it's a testudo..
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Feb 6, 2015 15:08
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Fangz posted:It's hard to see how the Japanese could have established an economic blockade of the US, anyway. You don't need to establish an economic blockade of the US. You just need to establish a blockade of your primary theater of action. Anti-commerce raiding in the Solomons or even New Guinea could have had a large impact on the ability of the Allies to keep troops effectively supplied.
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Feb 6, 2015 16:25
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chitoryu12 posted:It's actually plausible that this never happened. The picture of him supposedly preparing to fly shows him in cotton fatigues rather than a flight suit and there's no evidence that he has any flight training at all, let alone military. He was British infantry and commander of the Jordanian Special Forces, but there's no record of him being in any air force. All of the American sources repeating this story are right-wing papers, with the story having a "That darn dirty Barrack HUSSEIN Obama is a coward who doesn't want to fight terrorism!" slant. The story itself is probably the Jordanians just hyping up propaganda to make their government and armed forces look badass. ETA: Nenonen posted:Why is there a balkenkreuz on a Firefly driven by a British crew? Some weird attempt at deception or a perpetual trophy tank that had switched sides twice already? quote:Strange Firefly – may be from a film? Arquinsiel fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Feb 6, 2015 |
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Feb 6, 2015 16:40
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Japanese sub doctrine makes sense in the context of betting everything on one decisive battle. Like the rest of their war effort, once that battle was lost, any theoretical improvement in doctrine would only help them lose more slowly. Its interesting that so much of Japanese planning seems cognizant that they were taking a low percentage shot, but not a lot of consideration on how to extricate themselves if it failed. Can anyone think of a good case where the opposite was true, i.e. a war plan fails miserably but the losing side still ends the war in decent position?
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Feb 6, 2015 17:28
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P-Mack posted:Its interesting that so much of Japanese planning seems cognizant that they were taking a low percentage shot, but not a lot of consideration on how to extricate themselves if it failed. Can anyone think of a good case where the opposite was true, i.e. a war plan fails miserably but the losing side still ends the war in decent position? Nazi Germany 
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Feb 6, 2015 17:30
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P-Mack posted:Japanese sub doctrine makes sense in the context of betting everything on one decisive battle. Like the rest of their war effort, once that battle was lost, any theoretical improvement in doctrine would only help them lose more slowly.
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Feb 6, 2015 17:33
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P-Mack posted:Japanese sub doctrine makes sense in the context of betting everything on one decisive battle. Like the rest of their war effort, once that battle was lost, any theoretical improvement in doctrine would only help them lose more slowly. One of the only ways to theoretically get that situation is a war between second rate or regional powers who are threatened with great power intervention. It kind of depends on what you define as a "Decent position" - would you consider say Bulgaria in the second balkan war to have ended in a decent position?
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Feb 6, 2015 17:45
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Yeah arguably the PVA in Korea hoped to actually drive the UN forces into the sea, failed but still managed to hold the line almost back where they started. The Crimean War maybe? The Russians wanted to expand influence in the crumbling corpse of the Ottoman Empire, failed, but managed to avoid territorial losses. Maybe the NVA? The Tet Offensive failed but they won the war. War of 1812 maybe? The Yanks tried to invade us, failed, pushed back, but otherwise avoided significant defeat.
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Feb 6, 2015 18:05
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USA has gone into several wars with no realistic long term plans (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq) but has miraculously survived those setbacks.
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Feb 6, 2015 18:26
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Fangz posted:It's hard to see how the Japanese could have established an economic blockade of the US, anyway. They wouldn't have needed to establish anything like an economic blockade (which would've been impossible anyway because the U.S. economy at that time, unlike that of Britain, Germany, or Japan, was self-supplying in terms of strategic resources except for a few things). Just focusing on attacking U.S. and Allied resupply convoys during the island-hopping campaigns or even attacks on convoys between Hawaii and the West Coast would've been more effective than their actual strategy.
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Feb 6, 2015 18:34
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Japan should have sent a number of cargo ships ladden with explosives through the Panama Canal destined to commit a kamikaze attack against its locks and other merchant vessels on Pearl Harbor day.
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Feb 6, 2015 18:39
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Wasn't there a troop ship of some type that participated in the d-day landings that actually was launched from Hampton Roads? I ask because I think it was in the previous iteration of the thread and a bunch of folks said no way and somebody actually provided an infographic.
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Feb 6, 2015 18:41
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Frostwerks posted:Wasn't there a troop ship of some type that participated in the d-day landings that actually was launched from Hampton Roads? I ask because I think it was in the previous iteration of the thread and a bunch of folks said no way and somebody actually provided an infographic. There were lots of ships used at D-Day launched from various places around Hampton Roads, since it was and is a major shipbuilding center. Unless you mean they sailed from Hampton Roads straight across the Atlantic to take part in the Overlord landings.
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Feb 6, 2015 18:43
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Nenonen posted:Japan should have sent a number of cargo ships ladden with explosives through the Panama Canal destined to commit a kamikaze attack against its locks and other merchant vessels on Pearl Harbor day. Japan should have not gone to war with the United States or any of the other Allied Powers in the first place.
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Feb 6, 2015 18:45
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Nenonen posted:USA has gone into several wars with no realistic long term plans (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq) but has miraculously survived those setbacks. Scrawled on a DoD notepad: "Just win, baby"
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