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Jazerus posted:Factually, Taiwan is independent. However, according to the 5000 year old feelings of the Chinese people, it is merely a province in rebellion that Beijing mercifully allows to exist. Admitting independence would mean admitting that China can lose territory. Taiwan is independent because it is China. It is all those mainland rebels and pieces of like a dozen other countries Taiwan claims who are in the wrong. Don't make Taiwan put down the mainlander's rebellion!
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Aug 12, 2015 23:58
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago How the flying gently caress does Stopford not get court-martialed for his consistent failure to obey orders? I get that Hamilton is too soft on him, but holy poo poo if an enlisted man tried to exercise that kind of 'initiative' they'd shoot him.
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Aug 13, 2015 02:19
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Stopford isn't openly defying his orders. Just about the only thing he's done that has directly contradicted an order was to shove forward those six battalions of the 54th Division as soon as they landed, and his defence there would be along the lines of "I was attempting to comply with the other order to occupy a forward defensive line between Kiretch Tepe and Thingy Hill as best I could, they were the only men available, and I was sure that the Chief would have approved had there been time to get him a message..." If you want an enlisted equivalent, he's not a bolshy private who says "I won't do it" right out and gets himself 30 days' Field Punishment Number One; he's the platoon sergeant who thinks that his lieutenant's orders are bordering on impossible to carry out, so is determined to achieve more realistic goals instead, with shouts and great action for the rupert's benefit. God knows there were enough of them in this war who were entirely justified. I must say, there's a very seductive line of thinking forming in my head; if only you could switch things around entirely and have Stopford (or Hammersley, or Mahon) command the landings at Cape Helles while holding back Hunter-Weston for Suvla, suddenly you have a situation that each man would have been far more temperamentally suited to. Stopford would surely have been somewhat less timid without the recent institutional memory of a bloodbath and a chief of staff whose attitude was "it can be done" rather than "it can't be done" (and if he'd snoozed through the bloodbath at W Beach then someone else with half a brain could have listened to the Chief and sent the blokes round to X and Y!) And if Suvla or something like it is still necessary, then what you need there is a thoroughly offensive twit who's going to take every opportunity to move fast and shout at people who aren't as offensive as they might be, exactly the kind of thing that Hunter-Weston would have been good at...
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Aug 13, 2015 02:59
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Jazerus posted:Factually, Taiwan is independent. However, according to the 5000 year old feelings of the Chinese people, it is merely a province in rebellion that Beijing mercifully allows to exist. Admitting independence would mean admitting that China can lose territory. This is unironically true however. From 1949 to 1979 it was the official cold war policy of the United States to use the ROC force on Taiwan as part of a force to eventually "recover" China from the Reds. Then came the detente and whelp. I don't think any of us would lose sleep if the PRC had succeeded in taking it prior to its democratization efforts the same way no one cares about what happened to South Vietnam.
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Aug 13, 2015 03:31
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mlmp08 posted:Taiwan is independent because it is China. It is all those mainland rebels and pieces of like a dozen other countries Taiwan claims who are in the wrong. Don't make Taiwan put down the mainlander's rebellion! Yeah, it's worth remembering that Taiwan cooperates in the fiction at least partially because admitting otherwise is to admit that the Republic of China is not, in fact, the legitimate government of China (and assorted other territories). That said, one of the major political parties in Taiwan holds true Taiwanese independence as an important goal, with the idea of pushing a unique Taiwanese culture that is totally and completely distinct from Chinese culture, you guys, seriously. Though even they step lightly when the PRC grumbles too hard.
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Aug 13, 2015 06:30
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HEY GAL posted:I don't know how Sweden does it, but the Empire does it like: the head of state gives a guy an appointment as a colonel and a document, called a Capitulation, ordering X numbers of troops by Y time. The colonel gives back another document, I think it's called a Return, saying that he will do this. He then appoints his regimental level officers and captains, then the captains go out and raise companies. Officially, I think those people are supposed to be under the authority of the head of state that's employing all of them. But they seem to feel as though it's just to the person who raised them as a company, like the deserter who wrote a letter when he left saying that the lieutenant who raised him is leaving so he feels no obligation to stay. Sweden roughly did the same, but in addition to that, there were the standing national regiments set up by the government that conscripted from a specific province. As far as I remember, getting command of one was by appointment.
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Aug 13, 2015 07:37
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Kemper Boyd posted:Sweden roughly did the same, but in addition to that, there were the standing national regiments set up by the government that conscripted from a specific province. As far as I remember, getting command of one was by appointment. Those weren't standing regiments. The conscripts were only part-time soldiers during peace. The only standing units were the garrison troops and the Life Guard Regiment. Hogge Wild fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Aug 13, 2015 |
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Aug 13, 2015 10:15
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Does Sweden also pay officers basically retainer ("Wartegeld") to hang out in a fortress until something happens? Because Saxony does that too. Anyway Hazzard, my point is that this is what "proper rank in the Swedish army" looks like. Also that the type of personality that thinks this is a cool career choice is also the type of personality that is willing to just completely ruin a guy's life over being stuck in the wrong place in a receiving line at court or something
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Aug 13, 2015 10:26
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HEY GAL posted:Does Sweden also pay officers basically retainer ("Wartegeld") to hang out in a fortress until something happens? Because Saxony does that too. During the older allotment system that was created under the G2A's reign only the Livgardet's (the King's bodyguards and the capital's defenders) and the various fortresses' garrison's soldiers and officers got paid during peace. During the later allotment system officers got a mansion house and local farmers paid their taxes to him. Non officers got a soldier's croft and were supported by a small group of farmers and their own farming.  Sveaborg Fortress' Commandant's mansion house.  Soldier's croft.
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Aug 13, 2015 10:57
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Hazzard posted:Yes, I just don't remember author's names for the most part. I also went googling "Wilson and Mann" and got nothing useful back, so I had no idea what you were on about. quote:Edit: In all of the small skirmishes along campaigns, how were pikemen meant to take part during the Renaissance? I'm struggling to imagine smaller fights taking place with the massed pike formations we imagine as the staple for pike and shot. Since lots of skirmishes happen when one foraging party blunders into another or actively goes out looking for another, and those are pretty cav-heavy, I'd have to go with that. I have heard about each cavalryman sticking an infantryman behind him on the horse to make good speed when foraging, and there's no way those dudes are also handling big staff weapons. On the other hand, you may just not use them. Musketeers already outnumber pike/pike-plus-random-alternative-weapons two to one, so you have a lot more of them kicking around for random tasks. Edit: It's pretty neat, when you think about it, that so much 17th century war was guerilla fighting. If you come across period references to "partizan" or "partisan" fighting, that's what it means, since little "parties" are the ones doing it. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 12:23 on Aug 13, 2015 |
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Aug 13, 2015 11:55
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Did you guys know that "unrestricted air and submarine warfare" doesn't mean blockade, and that the USAAF could have won the war by dropping food parcels on Japanese cities?
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Aug 13, 2015 12:06
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Did you guys know that "unrestricted air and submarine warfare" doesn't mean blockade, and that the USAAF could have won the war by dropping food parcels on Japanese cities? ...poisoned food parcels?
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Aug 13, 2015 12:33
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Rabhadh posted:...poisoned food parcels? Nope. Regular non-poisoned food. D&D said it, so you know it's true!
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Aug 13, 2015 12:35
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Nope. Regular non-poisoned food. Was it that one guy that someone suggested euthanizing? Did he expect the food parcels to literally crush the Japanese or...?
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Aug 13, 2015 12:56
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JcDent posted:Was it that one guy that someone suggested euthanizing? Nope. If you feed your enemy's civilian population they'll turn on their leaders and make them surrender to you. This is literally his reasoning.
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Aug 13, 2015 13:07
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drat, that really is a terrible thread.JcDent posted:Was it that one guy that someone suggested euthanizing? As far as I can tell, the suggestion is that a blockade would have effectively forced the Japanese to surrender eventually anyways due to lack of military material, and by air-dropping food parcels into civilian centers the US could have shifted the moral blame of starving civilians from themselves to the Japanese military, thus absolving the American military of any "harming civilians" guilt. Thus, victory without atrocities. Did the US actually POSSESS the logistical capacity to airlift enough food supplies to feed Japan at the time, even?
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Aug 13, 2015 13:11
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Nope. If you feed your enemy's civilian population they'll turn on their leaders and make them surrender to you. This is literally his reasoning. Wow, it's the strategic bomber thesis, but with food instead of bombs. As for the logistics of it, I'm gonna say no you could not feed the whole country, especially with the Japanese, you know, trying to shoot down your aircraft. That said, the food situation at the end of the war in Japan was desperate, and it was a few years before it improved back to a level approaching normal. Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 14:14 on Aug 13, 2015 |
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Aug 13, 2015 14:11
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How many simultaneous Berlin airlifts at much longer range for an indefinite time period would that be?
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Aug 13, 2015 14:25
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With people shooting at you.
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Aug 13, 2015 14:28
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StashAugustine posted:With people shooting at you. Attrition is less easily calculable, and I think totally unnecessary to display the sheer order of magnitude difference between that idea and actual capability.
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Aug 13, 2015 14:42
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xthetenth posted:Attrition is less easily calculable, and I think totally unnecessary to display the sheer order of magnitude difference between that idea and actual capability. Well it depends. Are we dropping humanitarian assistance from 30,000 feet or are we sending the planes in at 5,000 feet to ensure maximum accuracy?
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Aug 13, 2015 14:50
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Hogge Wild posted:Those weren't standing regiments. The conscripts were only part-time soldiers during peace. The only standing units were the garrison troops and the Life Guard Regiment. Translation issue there: the regiments themselves were permanently established as units during the 30YW, even if they weren't always up to full strength.
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Aug 13, 2015 14:53
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Has anyone proposed sending 30,000 children to Japan to pray and peacefully convert them through a demonstration of their virtue?
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Aug 13, 2015 14:53
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StashAugustine posted:With people shooting at you. Would you actually shoot at bombers that you know are going to drop free food to you?
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Aug 13, 2015 14:54
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Nenonen posted:Would you actually shoot at bombers that you know are going to drop free food to you? No, you'd probably be too busy laughing. Or shoot them because no one could possibly be that stupid and the food must be laced with poison or plague or some such.
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Aug 13, 2015 15:00
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Nenonen posted:Would you actually shoot at bombers that you know are going to drop free food to you? Would you know that they're dropping food for you? How do you arrive at the idea that dropping food will convince people to turn on their government, instead of said food being seized by the government and sent to military units? Do they think that the war had turned into a counter-insurgency by then? I could at least see the idea being floated in a COIN context, but not an industrial war one.
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Aug 13, 2015 15:02
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That's actually a pretty interesting question derived from a really stupid premise. In Berlin, they calculated that the minimum for survival was around 5 lbs of supplies per person per day, which was 7,000 tons a day for the 2.8mm people. One way from the two main airfields used was around 300 air miles, so on average they were moving supplies 2.1mm ton-miles daily. Aircraft availability is hard to come by, but around 700 participated total, and if we assume a 40% readiness rate that gives us 280 aircraft available per day. If each plane averages 8 tons per flight, that's 875 flights per day, or a little over 3 per plane. The population of Japan was around 70mm in 1945. For Japan we can probably knock off a pound per person due to the warmer climate and lower fuel needs, so call it 4 lbs per person per day. That comes out to around 140,000 tons per day. If we're doing it from the Marianas, that's a one way trip of around 1,500 miles, which gives total ton-miles of 210mm per day. The B-24 and B-29 were the only aircraft with the range required; the B-24's payload at that range was around 4 tons, the B-29's was 10 tons. So, if we assume we do a mixed force of both types 50/50, that's an average payload of 7 tons per aircraft. Due to travel time it would be almost impossible to run more than one sortie per day, so we'll call it 1.5 sorties per day. To deliver 140,000 tons per day would require 20,000 sorties per day, which with a 100% readiness rate gives just over 13,000 aircraft as the minimum required. With a more realistic readiness rate it'd be well over 20,000. This maybe works better if we use Iwo Jima and Okinawa (or Vladivostok for that matter) as our main bases but I still suspect it'd take more heavy aircraft than exist in the world to do the job. Welp, let's roll people. bewbies fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Aug 13, 2015 |
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Aug 13, 2015 15:03
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I'm sure the dudes in ISIS are just really hungry. I've got nothing to do, lets roll indeed. So glad I'm avoiding that train wreck of a thread.
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Aug 13, 2015 15:07
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bewbies posted:That's actually a pretty interesting question derived from a really stupid premise. So after we assemble 250% of total B-29 production and half of total B-24 production before losses from the rest of the war... Looks like every B-29 and B-24 built puts us short by 2,000 B-29s or an equivalent throughput of B-24s. xthetenth fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Aug 13, 2015 |
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Aug 13, 2015 15:10
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Davin Valkri posted:How do you arrive at the idea that dropping food will convince people to turn on their government, instead of said food being seized by the government and sent to military units? Do they think that the war had turned into a counter-insurgency by then? I could at least see the idea being floated in a COIN context, but not an industrial war one. Yeah this is also really important- I don't know how it's been in other instances of giving food to hostile powers, but the big one in my mind is aid to North Korea, which usually simply got seized by the military and then whatever spare there was was sold to the local population so whatever pseudo-warlord was around there could make some extra money. Incidentally the giant UN markings on all the containers are there because we seized them from the enemy you see, not at all because they gave them to us. I guess if your population can literally see the things fall in packages from the sky it might be different but I'm highly skeptical. In fact I'm pretty sure some South Korean peace groups have tried that to no avail?
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Aug 13, 2015 15:12
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Didn't that happen not that long ago in Africa? Food aid was sent and it was just taken by the local warlords and perpetuated the war going on in the region for a while.
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Aug 13, 2015 15:16
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Nope. If you feed your enemy's civilian population they'll turn on their leaders and make them surrender to you. This is literally his reasoning. I appreciate the well-informed effort posts many have made, they've made the thread worth reading despite the dreck. I have learned which posters to skip, at least.
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Aug 13, 2015 15:30
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You know, that is an interesting question, come to think of it - WERE there any notable conflicts in which one of the belligerent governments gave significant and overt material aid to their enemies during their war?
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Aug 13, 2015 15:37
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A major civil war sounds like the best candidate.
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Aug 13, 2015 15:47
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Tomn posted:You know, that is an interesting question, come to think of it - WERE there any notable conflicts in which one of the belligerent governments gave significant and overt material aid to their enemies during their war? Chinese Civil War. Or did you mean intentionally?
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Aug 13, 2015 15:55
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Tomn posted:You know, that is an interesting question, come to think of it - WERE there any notable conflicts in which one of the belligerent governments gave significant and overt material aid to their enemies during their war? It was pretty common in the ACW for forces to feed or otherwise help out opposing formations after they surrendered, then immediately parole them.
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Aug 13, 2015 16:04
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Deteriorata posted:I appreciate the well-informed effort posts many have made, they've made the thread worth reading despite the dreck. I have learned which posters to skip, at least. if it's not too much effort would you mind linking some of them? i took a look at that thread and don't like the idea of trying to read it to find them.
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Aug 13, 2015 16:29
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bewbies posted:It was pretty common in the ACW for forces to feed or otherwise help out opposing formations after they surrendered, then immediately parole them. Considering he had the nickname "Unconditional Surrender", Grant did that a lot on the Western front, including right after Vicksburg.
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Aug 13, 2015 16:34
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Grant was a pretty gracious guy when he won. He understood that if the Union won the war the enemy would become their countrymen again, and therefore it was in his best interest to not be a huge dick.
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Aug 13, 2015 16:37
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sullat posted:Chinese Civil War. Or did you mean intentionally? Well, if we meant unintentionally we'd have to include Commisary Banks, wouldn't we?  But yeah, I meant intentionally. bewbies posted:It was pretty common in the ACW for forces to feed or otherwise help out opposing formations after they surrendered, then immediately parole them. I take it parole was at least reasonably well-respected, then?
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Aug 13, 2015 16:39
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