V. Illych L. posted:He was seriously brave, if nothing else, that man Sadly being brave can't save you from the bullet.
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Apr 25, 2015 18:49
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Trin Tragula posted:I found out the other day that I had a great-grandfather with the ANZACs, who survived Gallipoli and then died on the Somme somewhere between Pozieres and Thiepval. (We also know of one Territorial subaltern who survived three years from 1915 to 1918 in the trenches, a grand-uncle in a submarine, and one conscientious objector who eventually agreed to join the Non-Combatant Corps.) Both of them and S Beach. It seems like there were three beaches were the landings went very well, and no one had the sense to push inland. It's just so unbelievable for me. If that's how the British react to an open road, how on Earth could they have even hoped to do anything with any breakthrough they possibly achieved on the Western Front?
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Apr 25, 2015 19:37
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This is literally the first opposed landing in modern warfare, and one done under circumstances where the prevailing wisdom is that getting caught in battle without entrenchments was going to result in everyone getting killed. The lessons that were learned for D-Day were really learned from Dieppe, Sicily, Anzio, and the entire Pacific war. Really it took a long time to get amphibious landings down right, and even that required extreme material superiority not just in the Operational area but across the entire Theatre.
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Apr 25, 2015 19:57
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ArchangeI posted:Both of them and S Beach. It seems like there were three beaches were the landings went very well, and no one had the sense to push inland. It's just so unbelievable for me. If that's how the British react to an open road, how on Earth could they have even hoped to do anything with any breakthrough they possibly achieved on the Western Front? If they'd rushed ahead and gone head on into a reserve trench, they'd get slaughtered. If they went in alone and encountered an Ottoman force of any real strength, they'd get slaughtered. The nature of a landing like this is that you have poo poo for depth, so all it takes is one good whack and your entire force is pushed to surrender
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Apr 25, 2015 20:29
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MikeCrotch posted:The whole 'failing to push' thing was also levelled at British troops during the D-Day landings. There were a lot of complaints from senior commanders and Americans that British troops would get off the beach and consider their job done, instead of plowing inland as fast as possible while the enemy is at their most disorganised. If that happened, then the Americans were completely mistaken. The Anglo-Canadian sector advanced the furthest during the initial landings, and only slowed down because they were opposed by the vast majority of German armour in France. quote:
I posted a map of the Austrian-Italian border before, and Italy's failure is mostly down to the luck of geography. The Austrians side is literally all mountain, while the Italian side is a coastal plain. Worse, the Alps wrapped around the Italian border, forcing them to deploy in a nasty salient. The Italian front was hopeless for Italy from the beginning, but they didn't have any options besides throwing their armies at the Isonzo. The battle of Caporetto is easily explained by Cadorna's incompetent leadership, Austria-Hungary's total strategic advantage, and German tactical advantages like poison gas and infiltration tactics. The thin salient created by Veneto and the Alps made the Italians very vulnerable to quick advances from Tyrol, and the poorly motivated Italian army was unable to respond.
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Apr 25, 2015 20:36
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This is from like 7 pages back, but I felt like commenting on it  quote:We are? We just built two shiny new big ones, and per https://www.gov.uk/government/speec...ress-conference we're even going to actually operate both of them now. Bit short of planes for them for a few years (thanks to America loving up the JSF) but to say that Britain is getting out of the business is just incorrect. While the F-35B is a dumpster fire, the RN has really no one else to blame but themselves for planning them as STOVL from the get go. I understand the increased costs/requirements of a CATOBAR design are something to consider, but you greatly limit the available capabilities in your air wing. No planes like the E-2, and notably lower weight allowances for aircraft taking off. Being hosed by a limited air wing like that was basically inevitable, the F-35B just turned it up to 11. If they had designed them as CATOBAR, they'd have the 18E/F/G or Rafale-M to consider as replacements, possibly even saving themselves as much money as the CATOBAR design would've necessitated (~$50m per F-35 to F-18). Along with that, they'd have much more functionality from planes like the E-2D. Now they're just hosed into waiting for the F-35B to sort itself out. Mazz fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Apr 25, 2015 |
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Apr 25, 2015 21:08
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:I posted a map of the Austrian-Italian border before, and Italy's failure is mostly down to the luck of geography. The Austrians side is literally all mountain, while the Italian side is a coastal plain. Worse, the Alps wrapped around the Italian border, forcing them to deploy in a nasty salient. The Italian front was hopeless for Italy from the beginning, but they didn't have any options besides throwing their armies at the Isonzo. Well, there IS the option of stopping once it's clear that it's hopeless. Not a war-winning move, but not a war-losing one, either!
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Apr 25, 2015 21:42
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Tomn posted:Well, there IS the option of stopping once it's clear that it's hopeless. Not a war-winning move, but not a war-losing one, either! Hey, it's not like anybody else took that option.
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Apr 25, 2015 21:51
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Mazz posted:This is from like 7 pages back, but I felt like commenting on it Steam catapults on the CVF design would have almost certainly required nuclear propulsion a political none starter, the EMALS proposed for PoW isn't in service anywhere and didn't even launch an aircraft until a year after QE was laid down. There was no way a unique aircraft type for naval use would have been purchased, the RAF requirement for Harrier capability replacement and stealth aircraft (As combat aircraft neither Super Hornet or Rafale add anything to the Typhoon fleet) being just a big a factor in the procurement decision. The Royal Navy needs the F35b a lot more than the F35b needs the RN.
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Apr 25, 2015 22:24
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AbleArcher posted:Steam catapults on the CVF design would have almost certainly required nuclear propulsion a political none starter, the EMALS proposed for PoW isn't in service anywhere and didn't even launch an aircraft until a year after QE was laid down. There was no way a unique aircraft type for naval use would have been purchased, the RAF requirement for Harrier capability replacement and stealth aircraft (As combat aircraft neither Super Hornet or Rafale add anything to the Typhoon fleet) being just a big a factor in the procurement decision. The Royal Navy needs the F35b a lot more than the F35b needs the RN. I don't disagree with that, but in reality the ski jump is now forcing you to buy an aircraft in excess of 200 million dollars each last I saw. I was merely stating that it's not particularly the F-35s fault for this, but the fact a STOVL carrier design has no alternative options. Also, the argument for VTOL in general is kind of lovely. I get the love for the Harrier but you sacrifice too much for the capability, especially considering the odds of an F-35B operating out of an austere, forward base are pretty much zero. Mazz fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Apr 25, 2015 |
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Apr 25, 2015 23:12
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Alchenar posted:This is literally the first opposed landing in modern warfare, and one done under circumstances where the prevailing wisdom is that getting caught in battle without entrenchments was going to result in everyone getting killed. As a side note to this, it's rather depressing how poorly information and doctrinal developments were shared between the different theaters. Sure they were facing different foes, but a decent amount of stuff didn't care about who it was being used against.
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Apr 25, 2015 23:27
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V. Illych L. posted:If they'd rushed ahead and gone head on into a reserve trench, they'd get slaughtered. If they went in alone and encountered an Ottoman force of any real strength, they'd get slaughtered. "We have poo poo for depth, let's just sit here and not expand our beachhead while we have only slight resistance to our front, it'll be so much easier once the entire Ottoman army is here." It's not that they failed to give one good push that will take them all the way to Constantinople, they literally refused to push to their objectives despite having little ahead of them. That's when you send out the scouts and move to contact, not shrug and dig in because your orders didn't spell out that you should actually go and take your objectives. Every meter they seize in the opening hours is one they wouldn't have to charge across once the Ottomans brought up the reserves. They had to know that the clock was ticking the moment they hit the beach. It's flat out a failure of leadership.
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Apr 25, 2015 23:45
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Mazz posted:This is from like 7 pages back, but I felt like commenting on it They were originally designed with the space for catapults for this reason. The decision not to install them was a political one to save money, not the RN's idea.
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Apr 26, 2015 00:08
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ulmont posted:I recommend The White War. Cheers. I'll definitely pick up a copy the next time I do a book depository order if I can't find it at my local bookshop. Narrative history is my favourite, especially anything written by Christopher Clark.
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Apr 26, 2015 00:51
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Endman posted:Cheers. I'll definitely pick up a copy the next time I do a book depository order if I can't find it at my local bookshop. If you want a First-hand account of some of the fighting in Italy, and more elsewhere, I'd recommend Infantry Attacks by that Son of a Bitch who authored a book you read! At one point he mentions that the Italians were generally reluctant to fight the Germans/Austro-Hungarians because the general populace liked them, and they were a source of income due to trade, jobs, etc. Dunno how true that is, but the book is very readable. Rommel also recounts getting shot in the leg and is quoted as saying "In a man to man fight, the winner is he who has one more round in his magazine."
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Apr 26, 2015 01:00
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ArchangeI posted:"We have poo poo for depth, let's just sit here and not expand our beachhead while we have only slight resistance to our front, it'll be so much easier once the entire Ottoman army is here." I think it's probably a fair criticism of X that they didn't at least attempt to send a party up the coast to make contact with Y - but then, that could have gone either way depending on whether they could have got it done before the Ottoman counter-attack fell on Y. In terms of a general advance on Krithia, for all they knew until about midday, there was only a minor hold-up at V and they'd all be on their way up the Krithia road together in the afternoon. They were also only a third of the total force that was supposed to be advancing at X, and they'd already taken a number of casualties dealing with Hill 114. S wasn't much more than a picket force, it was always intended to be the fulcrum round which the offensive was going to pivot from Krithia to the top of Achi Baba. It was there to stop the Ottomans sneaking into Sedd el Bahr from the east and not much else until properly reinforced. (I think it says a lot that when the French arrived, this was the part of the line where Sir Ian Hamilton tried to hide their Senegalese troops who he had no faith in.) Advancing would have only have brought their dangling left flank into a position where any enemy reserves coming down the Krithia-Sedd el Bahr road would have naturally been marching to turn it. And they at least did have positive orders from high command, to sit where they were and await further developments. I don't blame Colonel Matthews at all for not launching an unsupported move on Krithia from Y. For all he knew, the town could have been strongly garrisoned out of view of his binoculars. Even if it wasn't, and he could have taken it, he still didn't have that many men. Installing them in Krithia would have left their link back to the beach extremely vulnerable, and if that's cut off then he's hosed. Or the inevitable Ottoman reinforcements could just arrive there in more than enough strength to push him out again, and now he's hosed again. The best-case scenario is that he takes Krithia and then the main force arrives from the toe in time to stop him being outnumbered (probably a close-run thing even if everything had gone A-OK at the toe, which it didn't)...in which case he might as well sit where he is, wait for the general advance and not risk getting cut off from his beach or annoying anyone by disobeying his orders. (And given what's about to happen tomorrow, it's probably a good thing that he didn't go anywhere.) He knew he needed reinforcements and more supplies, he spent most of the day jumping up and down and shouting for them, he got absolutely nothing in return. This also has to be viewed in the context of the British army at the time having a huge culture at all levels of "do what you're told when you're told to do it". When Smith-Dorrien went against his orders and fought the Battle of Le Cateau it permanently poisoned his relationship with Sir John French, who never forgave him (a slow-burning issue which is incidentally just about to explode nastily in both men's faces). Sir Ian Hamilton's spent the past month of planning agonising to his diary, caught between his dutiful sense of "Kitchener says this can be done, so do what you're told" and his common sense of "It's impossible without more men, more time, and more supplies" - and his dutiful sense was always going to win. The orders for both X and Y were to get ashore, establish a beach-head, and then wait for the general advance from the toe of the peninsula before doing anything else; neither beach had the strength to advance on Krithia alone and neither was intended to do that. What both X and Y needed most of all were reinforcements and fresh orders, and higher command singularly failed to provide them with such. Sir Ian Hamilton was well aware of the entire situation and failed to order Hunter-Weston to divert men away from V and W. Hunter-Weston declined the suggestion based in part on faulty information, and in part on a staggering lack of curiosity to find out what was going on for himself.
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Apr 26, 2015 01:00
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Fangz posted:Decimation in the 20th Century? Jesus Christ. Luigi Cadorna is... well, take every stereotype about the incompetent butcher and martinet of a WWI general. And dial it up to eleven. It's a miracle for the ages that the guy wasn't eventually shot in the face by someone under his command.
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Apr 26, 2015 01:43
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Mazz posted:This is from like 7 pages back, but I felt like commenting on it also everything i've seen indicates that the Rafale is actually a decent plane, unlike all its competitors
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Apr 26, 2015 02:23
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I'm vacationing in what used to be known as Jesselton in Sabah, and found a memorial to Australian soldiers there:     Slim Jim Pickens posted:If that happened, then the Americans were completely mistaken. The Anglo-Canadian sector advanced the furthest during the initial landings, and only slowed down because they were opposed by the vast majority of German armour in France. The issue was embittering because Montgomery kept playing it up after the war as "the Anglo-Canadian sector is drawing in as much armor and crack units as it can in order to weaken the German left flank and allow the Americans to break out" rather than acknowledging that there just happened to be a bunch of SS units on that side of Normandy and he really should've changed his plans to compensate accordingly. I don't think anyone would have blamed him for adapting to the circumstances, except he didn't and then tried to rewrite history to make it look like it was his plan all along to get stuck in an around Caen for a month.
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Apr 26, 2015 06:30
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gradenko_2000 posted:I'm vacationing in what used to be known as Jesselton in Sabah, and found a memorial to Australian soldiers there: That's interesting - that's not what I would have expected Australian memorial-wise in Sabah. Australians get caught up with Gallipoli and Kokoda and forget we were doing other stuff at those times as well.
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Apr 26, 2015 06:39
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Okay, Fascism question; what's with Mussolini's HQ? the one with the face and repeating "Si" logo? Like, is there a story behind it, some kins of fascist philosophy, or is just "check out my sweet chin"?
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Apr 26, 2015 06:47
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Rockopolis posted:Okay, Fascism question; what's with Mussolini's HQ? the one with the face and repeating "Si" logo? Like, is there a story behind it, some kins of fascist philosophy, or is just "check out my sweet chin"? I wanna see photos of high-up fascisti ducking into that gelati place next door.
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Apr 26, 2015 07:01
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Alchenar posted:This is literally the first opposed landing in modern warfare, and one done under circumstances where the prevailing wisdom is that getting caught in battle without entrenchments was going to result in everyone getting killed. What have we learned about them, other than 'don't'?
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Apr 26, 2015 08:22
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU1Ej9Yqt68 So this is a rather neat video, despite the very basic production values. Does anyone else make videos that provide graphical overviews of important battles like this?
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Apr 26, 2015 09:03
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Rockopolis posted:Okay, Fascism question; what's with Mussolini's HQ? the one with the face and repeating "Si" logo? Like, is there a story behind it, some kins of fascist philosophy, or is just "check out my sweet chin"? This is actually a really complex question, surprisingly. Italian fascism attracted some very influential strains of thought in architecture, in particular futurism. I'm not the best person to explain it, but the aesthetic of Italian fascism was by no means just what some random yokel failed painter thought looked cool.
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Apr 26, 2015 09:07
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100 Years Ago Italy signs the secret Treaty of London, and so commits to joining the war within 30 days, with vast...tracts of land the promised reward. Grigoris Balakian's group is split up; he's sent on towards Cankiri. Lest we get carried away with the bungling at Gallipoli there's a terribly-planned counter-attack at Second Ypres, finally scotched by more German gas. General Smith-Dorrien is now extremely worried about the salient and recommends withdrawal to a more defensible line. I have to run out now and the Gallipoli update still needs another map, so that'll follow in the evening.
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Apr 26, 2015 09:11
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Rockopolis posted:Okay, Fascism question; what's with Mussolini's HQ? the one with the face and repeating "Si" logo? Like, is there a story behind it, some kins of fascist philosophy, or is just "check out my sweet chin"? is this where big brother came from
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Apr 26, 2015 10:52
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Tollymain posted:is this where big brother came from Big Brother's aesthetic is more obviously in the style of Stalin, but this also will have informed it.
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Apr 26, 2015 11:19
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Tollymain posted:is this where big brother came from No, from this: 
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Apr 26, 2015 11:56
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I like that the guy is pointing right to the guy next behind me on the left. I'm sure the country needs him.
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Apr 26, 2015 12:12
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Speaking of Italy, I'm sure the thread has discussed this before but I'm not sure where exactly - why DID the Italian Army underperform so badly in WW2? I'm vaguely aware of its industry not being up to scratch somehow, but I'm a bit short on the details.
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Apr 26, 2015 12:32
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Not going to be an effort post per se, since I'm not an expert: Mussolini declared war in spite of realizing that his country was both militarily and economically inferior to that of allied countries. This had a number of reasons (he weird, yo), but mostly an anxiety not to get screwed out of territorial gains after the war, and provocation from Hitler who claimed everything was going to go fine. Il Duce boasted that he would bring "8 million bayonets" to the table, at a time where he had less than 1,7 million soldiers, and a lot of them did not even have a gun to put said bayonets on. To increase his number of divisions, he reduced their organization from 3 regiments to 2, and out of 73 divisions only 19 were fully equipped - most parts of the country desperately needed money, raw materials and motorized transportation. There was no money for training, so troops got most of their practical experience at the front, where it was often too late for them to benefit from it. The Italian fleet was designed for open fleet actions rather than the convoy protection duties they were assigned to during the war, and at any rate, lack of fuel kept their activity down. When they got stuck in, the superior training and equipment of the enemy destroyed the Italian leaderships faith in their own forces. This was compounded by bad judgment on their part, such as the invasion of Greece, where they assaulted an enemy trained and experienced in mountain warfare with an army that sorely lacked mountain troops and gear. There is really no one answer, the Italians had nearly no chance to start off with, and proceeded to squander it blatantly. Tias fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Apr 26, 2015 |
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Apr 26, 2015 13:55
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Hogge Wild posted:No, from this: what does lord kitchener have to do with big brother
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Apr 26, 2015 14:07
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Disinterested posted:This is actually a really complex question, surprisingly. Italian fascism attracted some very influential strains of thought in architecture, in particular futurism. I'm not the best person to explain it, but the aesthetic of Italian fascism was by no means just what some random yokel failed painter thought looked cool. Its quite interesting to compare the state of the arts in Germany and Italy at these times. Hitler (a failed painter) was thoroughly against Modern art (i.e. all the cool stuff happening at the time) and in 1937 there were 2 exhibitions - one of Great German Art and the other of Degenerate Art. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_Art_Exhibition Historically, the Degenerate exhibition is the more important of the two. If you are familiar with art history, you'll notice a few big names considered by the regime to be un-German. Crowds at the Degenerate exhibition were much greater than at the Great exhibition. In hindsight, this would have been a blockbuster of a touring exhibition. On the other hand, Mussolini was more open-minded about the Italian avant garde - notably the Futurists, as Disinterested noted. Somebody with more knowledge about Mussolini than me would need to answer why that was the case. Either way, Marinetti was able to convice Mussolini to refuse the Degenerate exhibition from touring Italy - Marinetti was well aware that the Futurists were the kind of artists that Hitler would consider to be "incompetents, cheats and madmen". Marinetti was unable, though, to convince Mussolini to make Futurism the official art movement of Fascism - presumably Mussolini didn't want to piss off the various groups of intellectuals the way Hitler seemed to be quite happily doing in Germany. Ultimately, I believe Mussolini favoured a more conservative artistic style and Marinetti got less and less experimental.
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Apr 26, 2015 14:23
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Hogge Wild posted:No, from this: I saw this being used for a carpet cleaning company business card. My country needs cleaner carpets!
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Apr 26, 2015 14:46
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V. Illych L. posted:what does lord kitchener have to do with big brother I've read that Orwell got the idea for the Big Brother from those WWI posters that were everywhere in his youth. SeanBeansShako posted:I saw this being used for a carpet cleaning company business card. My country needs cleaner carpets! lol Hogge Wild fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Apr 26, 2015 |
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Apr 26, 2015 14:48
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AbleArcher posted:Steam catapults on the CVF design would have almost certainly required nuclear propulsion a political none starter, Why? Conventionally-powered CVs with steam catapults have been successful for decades.
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Apr 26, 2015 15:15
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I committed three extravagant mistakes lately. Firstly, I checked out a book by John 'Ringo from my local library. Secondly, I began reading a book by John Ringo from my local library. Thirdly, I finished a book by John Ringo from my local library. It left me with so many questions but only two are of concern to the thread. Comendy question: is John Ringo wrong about everything ever? Read question: has there been a serious academic examination of the "clean" Wehrmacht myth and if so, where could I begin my reading?
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Apr 26, 2015 16:34
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Klaus88 posted:I committed three extravagant mistakes lately. John Ringo is a weirdo. In an earlier book he at least remembered Germany has a chancellor. In one of his latest books he suddenly forgot and reverted back to "prime minister". It's a wonder by his track record he didn't just describe every non-American leader as king or something. But it gets worse, believe me. There is some guy named Kratzman or something who wrote a novel in one of John Ringo's SF-universes involving Germany. The book reads as if written by a Nazi with either brain damage or one who never even looked at a book about German history from afar. I would consider it a comedic master piece if the protagonist hadn't been so happy to commit genocide at the end of the novel.  Edit: In hindsight, maybe I should have been warned away by all those swastikas on the front cover.
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Apr 26, 2015 16:46
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Libluini posted:John Ringo is a weirdo. In an earlier book he at least remembered Germany has a chancellor. In one of his latest books he suddenly forgot and reverted back to "prime minister". It's a wonder by his track record he didn't just describe every non-American leader as king or something. I once asked John Ringo on a forum why German soldiers in his book still wore fieldgrey given that flecktarn has been used for decades. He replied that the PE uniform was kinda grey and then changed the topic. Watch on the Rhine is so deliciously crazy. It's not just clean Wehrmacht but clean Waffen-SS. Also apparently Germany needs the SS because they are the only people properly motivated to fight against an alien species who wants to eat all humans and will invade Earth with untold billions of soldiers.
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Apr 26, 2015 16:57
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