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Throatwarbler posted:wasn't the Bren a knockoff of some pre war Czech gun.
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Aug 30, 2015 00:39
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Wasn't the Harrier an actually decent VTOL aircraft aswell?
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Aug 30, 2015 00:40
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nothing to seehere posted:Wasn't the Harrier an actually decent VTOL aircraft aswell? It's pretty much the only decent VTOL aircraft, not counting the Osprey.
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Aug 30, 2015 00:48
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Saint Celestine posted:By that logic, the current state of affairs in the Middle East was caused by the launching of the Queen Elizabeth battleships. The QE class were just the first class. After that, with the assumption that oil would be available, the Royal Navy started a very thorough conversion to oil fuel. New construction of coal-fired ship ceased and existing ships were converted to oil when they came in for major refits. I'm not saying that Britain would't have hosed up the Middle East something special if they hadn't converted the fleet to oil, but they did, and they did.
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Aug 30, 2015 00:48
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The Queen Elizabeths weren't the first pure oil-fired ships in the Royal Navy by a long way. Destroyers had already been switched over under Fisher (apart from a single reversion in the Beagle class), and mixed fuel had been standard for some time. They were the impetus for the Anglo-Persian oil agreement, however. Still, claiming that the Middle East went to poo poo because Churchill and the Royal Navy decided oil was better than coal is a special kind of simplistic monocausal horseshit stupidity that I wouldn't normally expect from this thread. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Aug 30, 2015 |
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Aug 30, 2015 00:52
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Hogge Wild posted:Shouldn't it be compared to their main enemy's squad support weapon, the MG 34? They're really products of different design philosophies. The MG34 was broadly superior to the Bren because the Germans weren't thinking like the British, French, Italians, etc. That said, the MG 34's increased rate of fire does raise its logistical load compared to contemporary LMGs. By designing such a weapon for the purposes of squad-level fire support, the Germans were implicitly preparing themselves for an industrial war that the rest of Europe wasn't ready to fight. By mid-war though, it turns out that the Germans weren't able to fight that sort of war either. There weren't enough MG 34s, or bullets for that matter, for the German army by 1942.
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Aug 30, 2015 01:34
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:They're really products of different design philosophies. The MG34 was broadly superior to the Bren because the Germans weren't thinking like the British, French, Italians, etc. I should actually take some time to explain what I know about this design philosophy. The Germans were based around the machine gun. The machine gun was the primary weapon of an infantry squad, with riflemen acting in support of it. Soldiers often carried extra machine gun ammo and the MG 34 (and later MG 42) was a big belt-fed gun capable of laying down serious fire. The two guns were kind of ahead of their time, as relatively lightweight belt-fed machine guns meant to be carried by a two man squad (or even one man in a pinch) and quickly moved around the battlefield. No other military really had an equivalent, as they were all magazine-fed. American armies, on the other hand, were based around the rifleman. Machine guns were support weapons that laid down suppressive fire for the riflemen to make kills. The BAR was essentially a heavy battle rifle more than a true LMG, but still more capable than an M1 Garand of laying down suppressing fire on a position. The next step up from the BAR for American soldiers would be the M1919 or M1917, and relatively few M1919s were built or modified to be carried and fired by a soldier on the move; they were mounted on a tripod and had no stock until the M1919A6.
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Aug 30, 2015 05:35
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The best way to consider the Bren is how it fits into a particular class of weapon that was obsoleted by weapons like the MG34 and MG42. The magazine-fed LMG or automatic rifle served an important role, which appeared particularly important in light of WWI experience, of providing a mobile base of automatic fire for the rifle squad. The MG34 and MG42 represented a massive technical leap forward, and a huge improvement in infantry firepower. It's like comparing the Garand to the Sturmgewehr 44. Or the M14, or FN-FAL, or G3, to the AKM. With regard to machineguns, the Germans were the first to understand the potential of the GPMG concept and design weapons around that idea, so it's no surprise that they came up with superior weapons to accomplish that role. In light of what it was actually designed to do, the Bren is an outstanding weapon.
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Aug 30, 2015 06:48
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The Bren is great because you can't reasonably expect a tommy to carry and fire two rifles at once.
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Aug 30, 2015 08:10
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The maxim gun was a procurement success.
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Aug 30, 2015 09:05
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Thanks, guy, spent two hours reading that ARRSE wiki, and now I'm even more horrified of the British procurement system.
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Aug 30, 2015 10:11
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Privatised Commissary Ho! If I remember right when the British Commissariat was first set up it was privatised to keep the costs down, making supplies not always of the highest quality or on time. I'm still disappointed that working in the Commissariat doesn't make you a Commissar. Hazzard fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Aug 30, 2015 |
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Aug 30, 2015 11:35
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100 Years Ago General Joffre has the enemy firmly in his sights; he takes careful aim and fires a torpedo directly at General Sarrail. Joffre is none-too-happy that he's just sacked someone only to see him come back and be even more of a pain in the arse. Still, Joffre is not unfamiliar with how to be the pain rather than suffering the pain. Sarrail's proposals for a landing across the way from Gallipoli may have plenty of political support, but is that enough? On the ground at Cape Helles, Kenneth Best is trolling around, getting his feet back under the desk, and hearing all the latrine rumours. And Louis Barthas has actually lucked into rather a good thing, although he's not quite in a position to be able to appreciate it yet.
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Aug 30, 2015 12:33
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chitoryu12 posted:American armies, on the other hand, were based around the rifleman. Machine guns were support weapons that laid down suppressive fire for the riflemen to make kills. The BAR was essentially a heavy battle rifle more than a true LMG, but still more capable than an M1 Garand of laying down suppressing fire on a position. The next step up from the BAR for American soldiers would be the M1919 or M1917, and relatively few M1919s were built or modified to be carried and fired by a soldier on the move; they were mounted on a tripod and had no stock until the M1919A6. One of the problems that the US infantry had was that the soldiers' basic training stressed marksmanship to the point that soldiers tended to only take aimed shots at targets they could see- reports from the field emphasized the need for riflemen to shoot at area targets using the advantage of semi-automatic fire, but it was hard to un-train their marksmanship focus. The Germans were definitely ahead of their time regarding machine guns, though.
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Aug 30, 2015 13:23
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JcDent posted:Thanks, guy, spent two hours reading that ARRSE wiki, and now I'm even more horrified of the British procurement system. Wait until you read about the Crimean War. It gets downright lethal.
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Aug 30, 2015 16:19
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Panzeh posted:One of the problems that the US infantry had was that the soldiers' basic training stressed marksmanship to the point that soldiers tended to only take aimed shots at targets they could see- reports from the field emphasized the need for riflemen to shoot at area targets using the advantage of semi-automatic fire, but it was hard to un-train their marksmanship focus. The Germans were definitely ahead of their time regarding machine guns, though. Wasn't rifle marksmanship a British thing more?
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Aug 30, 2015 16:40
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SeanBeansShako posted:Wait until you read about the Crimean War. It gets downright lethal. Can you give some examples? The wiki just says logistics were crappy, without going into details.
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Aug 30, 2015 16:41
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Tias posted:Can you give some examples? The wiki just says logistics were crappy, without going into details. Oh god where did it go right. Long story short really, a series of gently caress up's abound in logistical, procurement and supply. What was needed was never really there or in suitable amounts unless you were lucky/rich enough to barter for or you were well off back home to be sent via the mail. And when it wasn't needed it was either lost in an accident, sent back to Istanbul or it rotted in a crate on the dock because the clerks messed up the paper work and god forbid don't you know important and costly this all is stop dying of cold you babies grow some facial hair ugh. This is sort of a problem though as it sort gets really loving cold in the winter. Lots of men died on top of the soldiers already dying of the usual disease you associate with the mid 19th century. And this wasn't a one off thing in 1855. It happened multiple times through the campaign as it stretched on. The Crimean War was loving insane. To understand the scope of the cobbled together oh jesus why did you do that you have to really read into it yourself. It seems the British Armed Forces in general are destined to always suffer from touch and go issues with supply, procurement and leadership. SeanBeansShako fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Aug 30, 2015 |
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Aug 30, 2015 17:12
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The Crimean War had fun stuff as "according to standing orders, men are supposed to get their own vegetables, it's not the job of the Commissary." *everyone drops dead of scurvy* The Royal Navy sent citrus juice to Crimea to distribute to the army, and vegetables were shipped in, but the Commisary felt like distributing this was not their job. So all the vegetables sat on navy ships until they started going bad and the crews tossed them into the sea.
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Aug 30, 2015 17:34
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Tias posted:Can you give some examples? The wiki just says logistics were crappy, without going into details. The British army nearly froze to death while French soldiers camped somewhat comfortably nearby. IIRC the French made sure everyone had a tent while British soldiers were expected to scavenge for wood to build their own shelters. Additionally the French managed to select a supply base that was very close to their army and had a logistical system to move supplies up. The British on the other hand selected a location miles and miles away and had nearly no one to bring supplies up to where the army was.
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Aug 30, 2015 17:47
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JcDent posted:Wasn't rifle marksmanship a British thing more? At the start of WWI it was, but after the entire British army died in Flanders, they caught on quick to the power of automatic weapons. The Lewis gun was the archetypal LMG, and it was adopted in 1916. LMGs like the Bren weren't really obsoleted like a generation of tanks/planes would be. The difference in rate of fire wasn't as big as it seems, since machine gunners don't usually achieve an effective rof as high as their gun's cyclic rate. Rather, the problem of the British was that they had 3 different machine gun models for the army: Vickers at company-level, Brens at squad-level, BESAs in vehicles. None of them were bad at what they did (The Vickers was really old though), but an MG34-like weapon could have replaced them all.
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Aug 30, 2015 17:50
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Raskolnikov38 posted:The British army nearly froze to death while French soldiers camped somewhat comfortably nearby. IIRC the French made sure everyone had a tent while British soldiers were expected to scavenge for wood to build their own shelters. Additionally the French managed to select a supply base that was very close to their army and had a logistical system to move supplies up. The British on the other hand selected a location miles and miles away and had nearly no one to bring supplies up to where the army was. I'm beginning to repeat myself, but how the gently caress does poo poo like that happen, and keeps happening? At this point, I'm surprised that British Empire didn't collapse overnight because of a clerical error.
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Aug 30, 2015 17:55
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JcDent posted:I'm beginning to repeat myself, but how the gently caress does poo poo like that happen, and keeps happening? At this point, I'm surprised that British Empire didn't collapse overnight because of a clerical error. 1) Historical suspicion of a standing army that stems from the civil war; and 2) The lion's share of military spending always going to the Navy combine to create an institution where talent isn't really expected or appreciated.
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Aug 30, 2015 18:36
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Klaus88 posted:A brief list of British procurement successes. The navy was pretty good at "procuring" new frigates  
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Aug 30, 2015 18:59
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Nebakenezzer posted:the Hawker Hunter is still flying today. 
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Aug 30, 2015 20:29
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The Crimean war is just an absolute clusterfuck that'd be more hilarious if not for all the death. It starts with all these grand dreams of dismantling Russia completely and ends with one half dead and one mostly fine army eventually nudging the Russians out of Sevastopol without destroying the Tsar's army.
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Aug 30, 2015 21:41
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Wasn't Crimea the one where British soldiers were starving to death, and aid agencies tried to send food, but were stopped by top brass who thought that accepting charity would make them look weak? Or was that another one?
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Aug 30, 2015 22:47
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You can shout about Crimea all you want to, still less of a cluster gently caress than the First British Invasion of Afghanistan. Lets overthrow a guy whos sympathetic to our overall strategic goal and ignore the advice of the guy who literally mapped out the country for us! 17000 enter less than a dozen leave 
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Aug 30, 2015 23:03
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Suspect Bucket posted:Wasn't Crimea the one where British soldiers were starving to death, and aid agencies tried to send food, but were stopped by top brass who thought that accepting charity would make them look weak? Or was that another one? It wasn't that one, as this was the war where the care package was encouraged with Royal backing. Queen Victoria and the developing British press helped quite a bit.
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Aug 30, 2015 23:37
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I think I was an undergrad when I saw how comparable Crimean War casualties were to the ACW, and in significantly less time. I think more casualties were caused by disease but still.
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Aug 31, 2015 00:32
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bewbies posted:I think I was an undergrad when I saw how comparable Crimean War casualties were to the ACW, and in significantly less time. I think more casualties were caused by disease but still. Welcome to an important early moment in medical statistics. http://understandinguncertainty.org/coxcombs
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Aug 31, 2015 00:56
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Agean90 posted:You can shout about Crimea all you want to, still less of a cluster gently caress than the First British Invasion of Afghanistan.
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Aug 31, 2015 05:11
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Thunderdominion.
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Aug 31, 2015 07:49
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I didn't get to hold a pike this weekend because my stupid leg gave out e: I did get to smell a 17th c soldier's outfit tho
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Aug 31, 2015 10:41
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Somewhat HEY GAL related
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Aug 31, 2015 12:17
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JcDent posted:Wasn't rifle marksmanship a British thing more? Rifle marksmanship was an everyone thing.
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Aug 31, 2015 12:17
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I've got some news, or I will do in a little while once a few last knobs have been properly twiddled. Until then... 100 Years Ago Back to Africa, where both General Tighe and Colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck are taking stock of the situation. Bottom line; Tighe can't expect to do anything useful until Spicer-Simson's thoroughly ridiculous expedition arrives at Lake Tanganyika (now slogging through some honest-to-God mountains), and von Lettow-Vorbeck is disinclined to piss away his current advantage on anything less than the safest of bets. Meanwhile, not only is Louis Barthas getting thoroughly rained on, he's also got a new commandant, and the man's a complete cretin even by the standard of his fellows. This brings us the absolutely legendary description of Leblanc (or "Half-pint", as the blokes prefer to call him) attempting to navigate the battalion to their billets: "The poor guy read his map like a carp reading a prayer book."
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Aug 31, 2015 14:32
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A couple pages late, but as much as people might not like the Bradley, the AMPV program should pretty much guarantee its not going anywhere for quite a while. Overall, it may not be great, but it could be a hell of a lot worse.
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Aug 31, 2015 14:41
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Wait. Wasn't the Bradley supposed to replace the M113 already? 
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Aug 31, 2015 14:48
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Arquinsiel posted:Wait. The Bradley was only intended to replace some of the the 113s in mechanized infantry formations, which it did a quite a while ago. The AMPV program is the thing replacing the rest.
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Aug 31, 2015 15:34
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