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JcDent posted:Russian airplane technicians would have done the same, but faster, and with a T-55 engine thrown the mix somewhere there. Or with a crowbar in low temperatures/piece of bread in higher.
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Aug 24, 2015 10:51
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alex314 posted:Or with a crowbar in low temperatures/piece of bread in higher. The submariners mentioned before used bread, funnily enough. I'm beginning to see the wisdom behind the British rum ration...
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Aug 24, 2015 11:39
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Chamale posted:How much Soviet doctrine was built around the idea of launching a big ground invasion of Western Europe? I know NATO spent the Cold War planning for that possibility, but I've also read that the Soviets were more worried about a NATO surprise attack than the reverse. Pretty much their entire doctrine was based around defeating a peer enemy who'd have been on the defensive, with the shock of the Red Army's attack, and a large quantitative advantage (locally, at least) offsetting any qualitative superiority a 'potential adversary' might have had to offer. I do wonder what they planned to do to the Chinese post-1963, but I gather it involved lots of tiny stars airbursting at optimum height. I like your bottom-up approach to this question because it really shows where Soviet priorities had been going: one dimensional plans and equipment which are well-suited for certain situations, but wholly ineffective in others. In other news, middle school students are hilarious. Q: "Compare prehistoric times to your own life, what did they have and what do we have?" A, They had: "spears, maybe?", we have "guns" - a 13yo writing down an English word he prolly learned from Call of Duty in his best Dutch primary school cursive.
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Aug 24, 2015 11:42
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What would have been the role of Soviet helos and helo borne troops if they were forcing the Fulda? Also, did post-1963 ChiComs had a quantitative advantage over USSR?
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Aug 24, 2015 12:06
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Koesj posted:Pretty much their entire doctrine was based around defeating a peer enemy who'd have been on the defensive, with the shock of the Red Army's attack, and a large quantitative advantage (locally, at least) offsetting any qualitative superiority a 'potential adversary' might have had to offer. What were the Soviet plans if some lunatic tried to invade them?
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Aug 24, 2015 12:12
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The Lone Badger posted:What were the Soviet plans if some lunatic tried to invade them? 
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Aug 24, 2015 12:27
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The Lone Badger posted:What were the Soviet plans if some lunatic tried to invade them? A well-prepared offense is, by Soviet thinking, the best defense. If you've let the enemy throw the first punch, then you've already conceded the strategic initiative, your formations and command-and-control networks and plans will have been disrupted or destroyed. You deter the other side from even *thinking* of invading you, by making it clear that the moment the Soviets see you preparing for such an offensive, there will be an overwhelming pre-emptive 'counterattack'. Everything else is a contingency plan for when you've hosed up and been caught with your pants down.
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Aug 24, 2015 12:55
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JcDent posted:Russian airplane technicians would have done the same, but faster, and with a T-55 engine thrown the mix somewhere there. I've heard many stories about getting conscripted chemistry students to figure out how to unfuck the latest batch of free booze, but never one with an engine involved.
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Aug 24, 2015 13:16
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Fangz posted:A well-prepared offense is, by Soviet thinking, the best defense. If you've let the enemy throw the first punch, then you've already conceded the strategic initiative, your formations and command-and-control networks and plans will have been disrupted or destroyed. You deter the other side from even *thinking* of invading you, by making it clear that the moment the Soviets see you preparing for such an offensive, there will be an overwhelming pre-emptive 'counterattack'. I can't imagine why the Soviets might have been peturbed by large scale NATO exercises like Able Archer then!
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Aug 24, 2015 13:47
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The Lone Badger posted:What were the Soviet plans if some lunatic tried to invade them? Plan A: Bring the battle to the enemy soil Plan B: Nuke 'em, let the cosmonauts stationed on Mir rebuild civilization once the dust settles
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Aug 24, 2015 13:50
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I guess you could use engine heat for distillation process, but with that kind of hardware it's possible to turn anything organic into booze, so no need to gently caress with antifreeze. Some crazy balkan highlanders distill sheep poo poo. They could mow the grass or down some trees, add some chemicals to help breaking celulose, ferment and distill. Nothing out of reach of chemistry student.
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Aug 24, 2015 13:51
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Arquinsiel posted:The actual battle was fought near what is now the town of... Battle (imaginative!) which is several miles inland today. Also Harold Godwinson had to march his army most of the length of the island to meet William's invasion force due to seeing off the army of Harald Hardrada up there a few weeks earlier. Hardrada had also just kicked the crap out of Englands Northern armies in yet another battle immediately before Stamford bridge as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fulford It pretty much couldn't have worked out better for laying the ground for Williams Invasion. Of course he did have (well allegedly) a papal banner and the Popes blessing. 
Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Aug 24, 2015 |
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Aug 24, 2015 13:51
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Barbarossa really informed a lot of Soviet thinking then?
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Aug 24, 2015 14:05
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Klaus88 posted:Barbarossa really informed a lot of Soviet thinking then? Actually yes. A cool and interesting thing that the Western front vs the Eastern front did was really influence apparently the direction doctrinally, and tactically the two sides developed conventional warfare during the cold war. The junior and mid level officers who fought the Germans directly during the war are the ones who would come to shape doctrine later. So from what I understood, the Soviets really went into developing mobile AA to organically attach to units because air superiority wasn't a thing they had until the late war, and those officers who experienced it first hand would very much like to not ever have to go through that again. The Americans and British in contrast didn't really experience that, so they lagged on that front.
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Aug 24, 2015 14:27
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Klaus88 posted:Holy poo poo those maps suck, I'm guessing that isn't your fault though. Those are good maps. They show clearly what's important, and that's the main function of maps.
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Aug 24, 2015 14:30
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Hogge Wild posted:Those are good maps. They show clearly what's important, and that's the main function of maps. Looking again, you're right, and I'm wrong. They are good maps. Sorry Dokmo.
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Aug 24, 2015 14:37
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Raenir Salazar posted:Actually yes. A cool and interesting thing that the Western front vs the Eastern front did was really influence apparently the direction doctrinally, and tactically the two sides developed conventional warfare during the cold war. The junior and mid level officers who fought the Germans directly during the war are the ones who would come to shape doctrine later. Maybe not America, but ask anyone who evacuated through Dunkirk what not having air superiority felt like.
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Aug 24, 2015 14:43
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feedmegin posted:Maybe not America, but ask anyone who evacuated through Dunkirk what not having air superiority felt like. The US army built a shitload of AA battalions for Normandy and they hardly fired a shot so by the time of the Bulge the vast majority were disbanded and the troops used for infantry replacements.
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Aug 24, 2015 14:58
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feedmegin posted:Maybe not America, but ask anyone who evacuated through Dunkirk what not having air superiority felt like. Ironically the Bundeswehr also invested heavily into mobile AA, probably because they knew very well how it felt like trying to fight a defensive war of maneuver against an enemy who owned the skies.
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Aug 24, 2015 16:05
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Splode posted:I have heard this exact story but for a different plane. The foxbat I think? It was apparently nicknamed the flying restaurant as a result. There were a lot of Soviet aircraft this story applies to - that said, the MiG-25 was apparently hauling a lot of alcohol to cool its radar electronics. Alchenar posted:The US army built a shitload of AA battalions for Normandy and they hardly fired a shot so by the time of the Bulge the vast majority were disbanded and the troops used for infantry replacements. Yeah, post Normandy the Allies had overwhelming air superiority - the Luftwaffe for the most part simply withdrew rather than fight. The German generals in Normandy described allied air power as "the new flank." The Germans actually tried to coordinate their attacks with bad weather, simply because it would deny the Allies their close air support.
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Aug 24, 2015 16:14
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Cold War US Army divisions all had an organic short range air defense battalion, plus a medium/heavy battalion at each corps. That was comparable density to Soviet divisions during the same time frame.
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Aug 24, 2015 16:40
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e: ^^ yeah but the systems themselves were junk compared to what the Soviets were building. Nebakenezzer posted:Yeah, post Normandy the Allies had overwhelming air superiority - the Luftwaffe for the most part simply withdrew rather than fight. The German generals in Normandy described allied air power as "the new flank." The Germans actually tried to coordinate their attacks with bad weather, simply because it would deny the Allies their close air support. Basically the story of WW2 involves the US army building a ton of super-specialised projects in order to solve a very niche role on the battlefield, and then when that role didn't materialise (either because the hyper-specialised units were never in the right place or because Germany had run out of the thing they were supposed to counter) deciding post-war they didn't need to fill that role at all. Cue tank destroyer discussion.
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Aug 24, 2015 16:49
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Alchenar posted:e: ^^ yeah but the systems themselves were junk compared to what the Soviets were building. Were they? This certainly applies today but capability-wise through most of the Cold War they seem very similar.
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Aug 24, 2015 16:54
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Chamale posted:Grain alcohol is one of the best solvents in existence, and 20th century distillation techniques make it so cheap that governments must restrict it so people can't go on life-destroying benders for five dollars. When you're using hundreds of litres of essentially 196-proof vodka as a solvent, someone is sure to try and drink some of it. For a short time, Gorbachev tried to restrict hard liquor sales in an effort to improve the workforce. The only thing that happened is that government profits for liquor sales went down; as soon as the Soviets were denied their easily acquired vodka, they immediately shifted to moonshine and whatever vaguely alcoholic products they could get their hands on (poison be damned) to the exact same degree as they were drinking legal vodka before.
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Aug 24, 2015 17:17
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Alchenar posted:e: ^^ yeah but the systems themselves were junk compared to what the Soviets were building. My favourite project of those is the T28/95, an assault gun designed to defeat the Siegfried line. It wasn't finished in time and then they lost the prototype.
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Aug 24, 2015 17:22
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How do you lose a T28? 
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Aug 24, 2015 17:26
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100+ acre army bases if my memory serves me well.
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Aug 24, 2015 17:51
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Then they found it in the back lot of an army base a few decades later.
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Aug 24, 2015 17:54
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Uh, probably not the right places to ask, but... anyone has any solid data on modern, post '73, organization of Egyptian infantry at company level or lower? Or a thread I could probe for answers?
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Aug 24, 2015 18:08
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Monday twofer time. 100 Years Ago The Landships Committee has comprehensively shitcanned the idea of articulation at the same time as they move forward to the prototype stage on another design, which will soon acquire the name "Mother". There's a direct and obvious design line to be drawn between Mother and the Mark I tanks that will take the field in about 13 months. Meanwhile, the Army Service Corps entertains itself with a greasy pole in the rear areas (not like that, they're not the Navy, by Jove) by holding a sports day. The big nobs making British war policy have done a great deal of navel-gazing on the subject of using poison gas in response to the Germans' introduction of it this year. The result, never mind the entire moral outrage when the gas first came over, is of course "No, it's totally okay because it's us doing it." Sam Vimes would be proud of them. Anyway, Sir John French is very hopeful that this will make up somehow for his continued shell shortage (starting to abate but still biting pretty hard) and let them actually achieve something in this stupid battle that they're going to have to fight in order to be good allies. Meanwhile, the blokes are still fannying about.
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Aug 24, 2015 18:24
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Vocabulary question: What does "organically" mean in military unit context, like with the Soviets developing AA to organically attach to units. What does this actually mean, just a command structure and protocol to make make better use of military resources?
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Aug 24, 2015 18:46
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Trin Tragula posted:Monday twofer time. quote:Lieutenant Collison, whose dashing spirits demand an attack, contends that the whole line opposing us has been deserted by the soldiery and is now held by a caretaker and his wife. The caretaker does occasional shooting, while his wife sends up the flares. I love the image this conjures up.
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Aug 24, 2015 18:48
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Gaj posted:Vocabulary question: What does "organically" mean in military unit context, like with the Soviets developing AA to organically attach to units. What does this actually mean, just a command structure and protocol to make make better use of military resources? It just refers to a capability that is a permanent part of a unit. IE, a BCT's organic artillery battalion, or a division's organic aviation brigade. This is contrast to task-organized capabilities, where temporary organizations are made to support a specific mission. IE, attaching an engineer company to an infantry battalion to provide assistance in a river crossing or something.
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Aug 24, 2015 18:53
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JcDent posted:What would have been the role of Soviet helos and helo borne troops if they were forcing the Fulda? Considering what I know from NATO-plans and corresponding Sowjet-plans, dying in nuclear fire. Because the Sowjets straight-up included tactical nukes in their plan for smashing NATO-defenses, while NATO-plans went with an escalation plan: As soon as the Sowjets had used their first tactical nukes, NATO-troops would counter with their own tactical nukes. Then the Sowjets could choose between a NATO-occupation of Moscow and using strategic nukes. Then NATO would have countered with a second strike and the world would have entered nuclear winter. Hilariously, during the 90s it came out the 3rd World War would never have happened, since both sides trained exclusively to defend from an attack. There weren't any serious plans for an attack on both sides. Sowjet doctrine just assumed the best counter for an attack was an immediate counter-attack, so their training excercises looked like invasion preparation for the NATO-side.
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Aug 24, 2015 18:53
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WW2 Data We finally have the last 76mm Projectile update, which is exclusively shrapnel ammo. What are bar shrapnel rounds and what were they used against? What was the average diameter and weight of lead shrapnel balls used in Soviet projectiles? As always, click the link to find out.
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Aug 24, 2015 19:11
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Rincewind posted:I love the image this conjures up. Hold that thought until about Christmas... Gaj posted:Vocabulary question: What does "organically" mean in military unit context, like with the Soviets developing AA to organically attach to units. What does this actually mean, just a command structure and protocol to make make better use of military resources? I like to think that it means they were all towing enormous potato cannons. Does that make me a bad person?
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Aug 24, 2015 19:17
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Trin Tragula posted:I like to think that it means they were all towing enormous potato cannons. Does that make me a bad person? Not really, I was thinking of it as command releasing a bunch of formations into the wild with orders to link up with whoever they meet on the way to Berlin. RUN FREE LITTLE CANNONS, WE'LL SEE YOU AGAIN AT SEELOWE! Of course, I'm wrong and the focus is on the term "organ," like the AA unit is an organ of the regimental body.
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Aug 24, 2015 19:23
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The equipment was made with pesticide free components. The ammo is also gluten free.
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Aug 24, 2015 19:42
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^^^^ All units contain some biodegradable parts. Packaging part recyclable, but check local regulations for specifics. Deptfordx posted:Hardrada had also just kicked the crap out of Englands Northern armies in yet another battle immediately before Stamford bridge as well.
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Aug 24, 2015 19:42
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:When the ordnance board started spiking alcohol-based fuels with poisonous chemicals, American submarine crews just jerry-rigged filtration and distillation systems so they could extract booze from their torpedoes. I've seen this somewhere, too. Strained through loaves of bread, right? E: Answered twice 
Tias fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Aug 24, 2015 |
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Aug 24, 2015 19:47
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