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Hypha posted:I was thinking more the humorous stories that Hey Gal has. I am sure that as long as there are pistols, there will be soldiers shooting them out of windows as you do. The insanely depressive and awful elements of war are a big part of what causes the humorous* no-safety-concerns behavior. Or at least that's the impression I get from the veterans I had the chance to talk to. *to an outside observer
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Aug 14, 2015 10:38
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my dad posted:The insanely depressive and awful elements of war are a big part of what causes the humorous* no-safety-concerns behavior. Or at least that's the impression I get from the veterans I had the chance to talk to. Let's not forget the boredom.  
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Aug 14, 2015 10:47
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my dad posted:The insanely depressive and awful elements of war are a big part of what causes the humorous* no-safety-concerns behavior. Or at least that's the impression I get from the veterans I had the chance to talk to. The insane bureaucracy is also good for stories.
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Aug 14, 2015 10:47
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Hypha posted:I was thinking more the humorous stories that Hey Gal has. I am sure that as long as there are pistols, there will be soldiers shooting them out of windows as you do. and i think anyone who's had roommates can understand why these guys end up murdering their roommates
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Aug 14, 2015 11:23
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HEY GAL posted:and i think anyone who's had roommates can understand why these guys end up murdering their roommates So much for armed societies being polite societies.
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Aug 14, 2015 12:22
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This is bullshit. I was expecting guys of every nation pretending their guns are dicks.
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Aug 14, 2015 12:55
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Splode posted:How easy is it to set a wooden ship on fire? Historical anecdotes (from any era) are always appreciated. A 'fire arrow' isn't a flaming arrow, it's more like a weaponised firework. A small rocket mounted on an arrow.
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Aug 14, 2015 12:59
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chitoryu12 posted:This is what resulted in the somewhat jumbled culture and technology of Imperial Japan, with some of the best fighter planes in the world being delivered by horse-drawn cart to the airfield. That's not that weird, though. A big chunk of the German army was still horsedrawn in World War 2.
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Aug 14, 2015 13:13
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Not just German. Pretty much only the Americans managed to get rid of horse carts, and only because they had a massive automotive industry and lots of oil.
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Aug 14, 2015 13:21
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Tevery Best posted:Not just German. Pretty much only the Americans managed to get rid of horse carts, and only because they had a massive automotive industry and lots of oil. The BEF was notable for being almost 100% motorised. And then everything had to be left behind at Dunkirk.
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Aug 14, 2015 13:29
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Arquinsiel posted:Why, in all honesty, would they ever not do such a thing? So wait Arquinsiel, are you a actually a fan of Thatcher or not? I was puzzled why a guy who i got the impression was from the Republic (of Ireland) had the massive 'Thatcher was awesome' Avatar, which would be unusual for someone from Eire. But I thought someone else might have as you say 'gifted it to you'. But now I can't tell where you stand. Not to derail the thread but Full Disclosure since i asked you. My opinion on her passing ran very much along these lines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkq7WZTzkLQ
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Aug 14, 2015 14:00
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The Lone Badger posted:Wasn't Bushido pretty much invented whole-cloth well after the Samurai caste had transitioned into being bureaucrats? Warning: I'm no expert on this. There's bits and pieces drawn from earlier things. Bushido basically gathered up some bits and pieces of stuff from earlier eras to form a set of guidelines for how a proper warrior would behave. Bushido wasn't precisely one set of core tenets either, people came up with all sorts of proper warrior behavior guidelines. Not all samurai were bureaucrats. In fact, most weren't. Getting such a position was stupidly good if you weren't high enough in the samurai hierarchy to get a large enough stipend. Hell, over time even being higher up wasn't enough. Being a bureaucrat was a godsend because it's an opportunity to do a good job and stand out. And if you have a cushy job like that, you'd probably care less about the sort of bushido that emphasizes dying and more about the bits about serving loyally, etc.
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Aug 14, 2015 14:09
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Deptfordx posted:So wait Arquinsiel, are you a actually a fan of Thatcher or not? I was puzzled why a guy who i got the impression was from the Republic (of Ireland) had the massive 'Thatcher was awesome' Avatar, which would be unusual for someone from Eire. But I thought someone else might have as you say 'gifted it to you'. But now I can't tell where you stand. Pretty sure the av and text are ironic.
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Aug 14, 2015 14:33
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Deptfordx posted:So wait Arquinsiel, are you a actually a fan of Thatcher or not? I was puzzled why a guy who i got the impression was from the Republic (of Ireland) had the massive 'Thatcher was awesome' Avatar, which would be unusual for someone from Eire. But I thought someone else might have as you say 'gifted it to you'. But now I can't tell where you stand.  My money is on an American goon TBH. Few Britgoons would consider 40k hyperbole for Thatcher's Britain  VVVV Arquinsiel fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 14:49
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JcDent posted:Pretty sure the av and text are ironic. Pretty sure it's a trophy from getting an English goon ten bucks angry about warhams. Edit: Good, the e:fb summoning dance worked.
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Aug 14, 2015 14:50
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Frostwerks posted:This is bullshit. I was expecting guys of every nation pretending their guns are dicks. Please tell me this appears in early modern paintings.
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Aug 14, 2015 14:53
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Frostwerks posted:Please tell me this appears in early modern paintings.
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Aug 14, 2015 15:07
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...they were relatively malnourished and their dicks were smaller back then?
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Aug 14, 2015 15:09
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HEY GAL posted:guess why landsknecht swords hang the way they do in drawings and engravings Please throw up an example. I haven't noticed this and now I just have to see it.
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Aug 14, 2015 15:22
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Everyone at my fencing tends to end up holding their swords between their thighs if they need their hands free. We sometimes do "sword-fighting" with them if we're feeling silly.
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Aug 14, 2015 15:22
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Cyrano4747 posted:Please throw up an example. I haven't noticed this and now I just have to see it.   
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Aug 14, 2015 15:57
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xthetenth posted:Pretty sure it's a trophy from getting an English goon ten bucks angry about warhams. If anyone ever gets ten bucks angry with me, don't waste your money on an Avatar. Paypal me just five bucks and I promise to feel very bad about myself.
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Aug 14, 2015 16:04
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chitoryu12 posted:The Chinese invented gunpowder and the first cannons and proto-muskets, but they relied on "cold" weapons like swords, pikes, and bows/crossbows until quite recently. The Ming Dynasty I believe made significant use of cannons (including imported European guns and later copies of them) but preferred their common soldiers to use crossbows, which were faster and more reliable than matchlocks. They simply lacked the need to develop advanced infantry firearms, as they didn't face opponents for much of their post-gunpowder history who would actually require advances in weapons. China spent quite a long time as the big kid on the block in East Asia. Dumb question: didn't China get taken over by the Mongols at one point? Alchenar posted:The BEF was notable for being almost 100% motorised. And then everything had to be left behind at Dunkirk. I'm now picturing Germans on the eastern front riding into battle on Bren gun carriages.
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Aug 14, 2015 16:33
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100 Years Ago A long time ago, in a war far, far away,, the Italians and the Austro-Hungarians were having a bit of a barney down on the lower Isonzo. Well, okay, it was only about two weeks, but after two weeks of writing about the hell that they called Suvla Bay, it seems a lot longer. So they're back today, this time in the Alps, to show us that military madness comes in many flavours; this one sees men literally climbing cliff faces before they can attack and have the privilege of being cut down by machine-guns rather than splattered by boulders. Oh, and Lord Kitchener has officiallly signed off on General Stopford's death warrant; sadly this is not literally true and Stopford isn't going to be hauled back to the Tower of London in chains. He's also going to send Sir Ian Hamilton three young, good, energetic generals from the Western Front, men on a career upswing, months too late for them to do anything useful on the peninsula except dodge Ottoman shells. There's also an odd little footnote to Gallipoli, as a record-setting round-the-world sailor arrives in his private schooner to offer it as a makeshift hospital ship. No, really, it's like if Ellen Macarthur had unofficially supported Operation Telic by sailing her catamaran up the Shatt-al-Arab to Basra.
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Aug 14, 2015 16:35
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Nebakenezzer posted:Dumb question: didn't China get taken over by the Mongols at one point?
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Aug 14, 2015 16:42
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What happened to the abandoned BEF and French Army gear anyway? I know some French tanks and utility vehicles were pretty much used to free up other vehicles for front line duty? Did a majority of them just get scrapped and recycled?
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Aug 14, 2015 17:10
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago i feel somehow bad for sir hamilton poor bugger got a very bad hand dealt to him, didn't he
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Aug 14, 2015 17:11
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Nebakenezzer posted:Dumb question: didn't China get taken over by the Mongols at one point? Well by that time it was a bunch of divided states that hated each other and Kublai took advantage of that, not to mention that the Mongols used Chinese engineers and such against them.
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Aug 14, 2015 17:12
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SeanBeansShako posted:What happened to the abandoned BEF and French Army gear anyway? I know some French tanks and utility vehicles were pretty much used to free up other vehicles for front line duty?
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Aug 14, 2015 17:25
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Arquinsiel posted:The wouldn't be out of place there, thanks to Lend Lease and all, but mostly the Germans just converted them into tank destroyers because their own halftracks were better. Better perhaps, but they almost always had a deficiency of vehicles in their motor pool.
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Aug 14, 2015 17:25
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Taerkar posted:Better perhaps, but they almost always had a deficiency of vehicles in their motor pool.
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Aug 14, 2015 17:33
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Arquinsiel posted:"Beutepanzer" mostly. They tended to just use tanks as tanks, sticking a German cupola from a wrecked tank onto Soviet tanks that didn't have them, but occasionally tanks and most other stuff got torn up and turned into tank destroyers. I'm trying to image what a ad hoc Tank Destroyer Churchill looks like now.
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Aug 14, 2015 17:36
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Prooooobably the same as the Churchill 3" Gun Carrier built by the British TBH.
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Aug 14, 2015 17:49
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Arquinsiel posted:TBH I think they missed a trick by not using them as gun tractors like the British did after getting their hands on Lend-Lease vehicles, but I guess reliability issues (lol) or something made it look more attractive to get unarmoured open topped vehicles shot at by tanks? A lot of it was dictated by the immediate shortages at the front. I remember reading in von Luck's memoir that Rommel made a big push to make TD's and SPGs out of any available tracked vehicle (mostly french or captured british stuff hanging out from 1940) when he took command of the Atlantic Wall because he realized just how profoundly hosed he was if armor got landed in any significant numbers. For that manner look at the vehicles that were cobbled together in '41-42 for the eastern front. This is when German tanks were having serious trouble penetrating soviet tanks and before Panzerfausts really started becoming super common. Retooling assembly lines takes a long time, but slapping a captured Russian 76mm cannon on the guts of a marginally useful PzII can be done pretty quickly. The development of the Hetzer is really a logical continuation of that. Can't afford to shut down those Pz38 lines for as long as it would take to retool, but the tanks they're producing are gently caress near worthless against other armor? Just make the chassis, throw a bunch of angled iron plate on it, and stick in the gun that you make the most of but its still reasonably effective against armor.
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Aug 14, 2015 18:25
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Well, at least the Bolt Action book says that a lot of French stuff, rifles even, were taken by Germans, mostly to be used as rear area duty, since the tanks were kind of crap... well armored crap got made into Flammenwerfer. All those improvised, kitbashed looted verhicles must have been fun n maintenance and supply.
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Aug 14, 2015 18:45
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You're forgetting that Alfred Becker was in fact an Ork in disguise who fell through a timehole from Da Future to Orkify the 21st Panzerdivision just in time for D-day. Or just a really talented engineer who could figure out a way to stick any gun to any chassis and make it "good enough", but I like the Ork story better. That said, a lot of Lend-Lease UCs fell into German hands on the Eastern Front and were still used as Tank Destroyers for some reason. I guess the tiny footprint has something to recommend it as a mount for a Püppchen or whatever.
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Aug 14, 2015 18:49
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Nebakenezzer posted:Dumb question: didn't China get taken over by the Mongols at one point? Yeah, so the Song dynasty got a poo poo kicking from the steppes in the north and China was split into the Jin dynasty et. al. in the north and the Southern Song (generally considered 'proper China' for... reasons. Most of them bullshit but whatever) in the south. Then both those bits got rolled by the Mongols. The Tangs were another, earlier steppe dynasty that rolled in. They're properly China, again because reasons, and there's the Manchu Qing dynasty even later, another steppe group that gets to be China proper but got their start coming in from the north.
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Aug 14, 2015 19:04
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JcDent posted:Well, at least the Bolt Action book says that a lot of French stuff, rifles even, were taken by Germans, mostly to be used as rear area duty, since the tanks were kind of crap... well armored crap got made into Flammenwerfer. Char B1 heavy tanks were actually incredibly tough in 1940 and had a good record during the invasion of France. The problem is they had poor speed and fuel consumption, which didn't fit the maneuvering-based combat of the time.
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Aug 14, 2015 19:30
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the JJ posted:Yeah, so the Song dynasty got a poo poo kicking from the steppes in the north and China was split into the Jin dynasty et. al. in the north and the Southern Song (generally considered 'proper China' for... reasons. Most of them bullshit but whatever) in the south. Then both those bits got rolled by the Mongols. The Tangs were another, earlier steppe dynasty that rolled in. They're properly China, again because reasons, and there's the Manchu Qing dynasty even later, another steppe group that gets to be China proper but got their start coming in from the north. With the Cantonese speakers I know, Tangren and Zhongguoren (Yes pinyin because I'm not familiar with any Cantonese romanization system) are basically synonyms for referring to the Chinese people. My mother, at least, generally sees them as one of China's golden ages. It's a weird issue because race was ostensibly not an obstacle to being Chinese in ancient times. The Chinese-ness of a particular group depended on how much of a "civilized" agrarian society they were. I'm not sure how true it is because it sounds oh so similar to racists who'd justify the oppression of blacks with the argument that they would only be recognized as the equals with whites once they learned to behave, etc. A lot of military leaders were drawn from partially Sinacized groups that would increasingly value Chinese ways over their own. Often this is because they have more military experience than the average court official. Either way, the Yuan (Mongol) and Qing dynasties were recent enough that we remember things a lot more clearly than with the Tang. Also, the Ming dynasty followed the Yuan and generally made a big deal of recovering China from the Mongols. The Qing imposed the queue on males and were in power at the time of China's humiliations so for someone proud of China's long history, it's way easier to point and say that the Manchus led China astray, etc.
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Aug 14, 2015 20:33
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JcDent posted:
Fritz what the hell is this Boiling Vessel and where are we going to get more of them?!
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Aug 14, 2015 20:34
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