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BalloonFish posted:Actually, Fort Nelson was just one of 26 huge gently caress-off forts built around Portsmouth to deter Nap. III. But it wasn't badly sited- it was one of a chain of five forts (plus other redoubts) built on a high ridge a few miles north of the naval base. Although there is a superb view of the base, the harbour, the Spithead anchorage, the Solent and the Isle of Wight from the forts their armament faces inland. This, and the fact that they never fired a shot in anger and the entire 1850s invasion scare proved to be utterly baseless, means that there are loads of urban legends in Portsmouth that the forts were built the wrong way round or too far from the coast to hit enemy ships. Which they were - because their purpose was to defend the high ground and prevent the dastardly French from landing elsewhere on the coast and encircling Portsmouth from inland. They was a series of huge gently caress-off sea forts in the Solent to deal with ships, plus some more on land around the harbour entrance facing the 'right' way. That's the exact opposite of what all the exhibits were saying at the Fort itself when I visited. It had a crap ton on how the whole fort was a mistake after being built on the paranoia of a French invasion. Huge focus was placed on the cost of it, along with a huge gently caress off armoury of artillery pieces that seem to have been stolen from everywhere Britain seems to have won a war between Agincourt and the Crimea. Some of them were ridiculous. One was a dog, about 4 ft tall and was a mortar with legs and not wheels. I think it was taken from Burma. Then there was the double barrelled Flintlock cannon. Take a Charleville musket, scale it up so that the barrel is about 15 ft long, place any barrel of the same length below, only attached by a handful of relatively thin metal strips and put on a flintlock firing mechanism like a double barreled pistol. That was a cannon stolen from Paris's armoury shortly after Waterloo. What it was intended for I don't know, it didn't look big enough to fire any sizable shot.
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Oct 15, 2015 19:55
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Hazzard posted:That was a cannon stolen from Paris's armoury shortly after Waterloo. What it was intended for I don't know, it didn't look big enough to fire any sizable shot. edit: also lots of guns are smaller than people think--sakers, falconets, etc. i used to drink at a bar in vienna that had been hit during the 83 siege and the ball was still in the wall, it was about the size of a small grapefruit or a big orange
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Oct 15, 2015 19:59
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Hazzard posted:That's the exact opposite of what all the exhibits were saying at the Fort itself when I visited. I know nothing about that for or its history so I won't comment directly, but I will say that the more you know about a subject the more errors, interpretive fallacies, and straight up bad history you find in museums. Some of it can be shockingly basic poo poo too.
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Oct 15, 2015 20:05
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HEY GAL posted:are regimental guns still a thing in the 19th c I have a 16-pound shotput, it's a bit larger than a softball, and it's much heavier than people expect. People are just not used to the density of a solid steel sphere.
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Oct 15, 2015 20:06
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HEY GAL posted:are regimental guns still a thing in the 19th c HEY GAL posted:edit: also lots of guns are smaller than people think--sakers, falconets, etc. i used to drink at a bar in vienna that had been hit during the 83 siege and the ball was still in the wall, it was about the size of a small grapefruit or a big orange This was small enough I couldn't fit my fist down the barrel. At that point I don't expect it to be all that effective. I have no idea on the age of the piece itself, but I don't think it can be that old (by 1815) if it looks like a 18th-19th century musket and uses a flintlock mechanism.
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Oct 15, 2015 20:13
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Cyrano4747 posted:I know nothing about that for or its history so I won't comment directly, but I will say that the more you know about a subject the more errors, interpretive fallacies, and straight up bad history you find in museums. Some of it can be shockingly basic poo poo too. Yeah, I was at a museum in Devon which tried to tell me, in a professional audio-visual exhibit no less, that Napoleon was imprisoned on Elba from 1804 to 1815. Like, not a typo or something, they literally said for 11 years. I think the intern wasn't reading Wikipedia closely enough when they wrote the script.
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Oct 15, 2015 20:16
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Hazzard posted:This was small enough I couldn't fit my fist down the barrel. At that point I don't expect it to be all that effective. I have no idea on the age of the piece itself, but I don't think it can be that old (by 1815) if it looks like a 18th-19th century musket and uses a flintlock mechanism.
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Oct 15, 2015 20:16
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Keldoclock posted:This knowledge isn't dangerous in and of itself. Does knowing how a house is built make someone dangerous? Or for that matter, a tank? I got in poo poo with the Russian government for writing how old tanks were built, sounds pretty dangerous to me.
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Oct 15, 2015 20:18
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Hazzard posted:I think so. AFAIK British artillery is fairly poorly organised for most of the early 19th century. Again, density. A piece of steel smaller than my fist, at high speeds, could blow through multiple people.
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Oct 15, 2015 20:20
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Molentik posted:Talking about gently caress-ups, wasn't there a [...] WWI where [...] the[y] [...] slaughtered their own men by the thousands by ftfy* *I mean, deliberately attacking enemy trenches head-on counts as slaughtering your own men by design, right, right, amici? Sorry, need to blow off my Cadorna hate after reading Trin Tragula's latest. It's weird how the excerpts from Hamilton's diary make him look, well not necessarily better but less worse, if that makes sense, but Cadorna looks fractally bad. Trin Tragula, I don't know what you do to stay composed and sane, but keep doing it.
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Oct 15, 2015 20:21
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Nope. Not combat ready is certainly a valid argument.
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Oct 15, 2015 20:21
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Chamale posted:Again, density. A piece of steel smaller than my fist, at high speeds, could blow through multiple people.
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Oct 15, 2015 20:22
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Ensign Expendable posted:I got in poo poo with the Russian government for writing how old tanks were built, sounds pretty dangerous to me. There a neat story behind this?
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Oct 15, 2015 20:26
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ecureuilmatrix posted:
Of course! But trying to slaughtering your own men by sending them towards the enemy and ending up not even seeing the enemy and still slaughter your men is a level beyond that imo.
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Oct 15, 2015 20:33
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Cyrano4747 posted:I know nothing about that for or its history so I won't comment directly, but I will say that the more you know about a subject the more errors, interpretive fallacies, and straight up bad history you find in museums. Some of it can be shockingly basic poo poo too. http://gothamist.com/2015/10/14/grand_central_hilter_nazis.php#photo-1 quote:In order to slow America’s entry into the war, Adolf Hitler came up with this plan. He sent 2 submarines from Germany to the East Coast of America with a surface on the banks of Amagansett on Long Island. Four Nazi saboteurs came out. They were seen in the middle of the night by a coast guardsman, but they disappeared into the black. The coast guardsmen let the FBI know there were 4 Nazi espionage agents. Where were they?
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Oct 15, 2015 20:58
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Trin Tragula posted:I think we'd all unquestionably like it to be true. I'd actually like WWI to be decided by slapstick comedy arm wrestling where Germany loses because Kaiser Wilhelm didn't read the fine print specifying which arm is to be used and the Tsar abdicates because he loses anyway.
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Oct 15, 2015 21:09
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Hazzard posted:That's the exact opposite of what all the exhibits were saying at the Fort itself when I visited. It had a crap ton on how the whole fort was a mistake after being built on the paranoia of a French invasion. That's certainly true - all the Palmerston Forts (at Portsmouth and elsewhere) are widely seen as expensive follies built on a surge of paranoia, although there is some question as to whether they served a deterrent value. But there's nothing wrong with the placement or design of the forts themselves; the ones on Portsdown Hill like Fort Nelson serve a sound defensive purpose if the starting point is "The French Will Invade Any Day Now!", although it's easy to see how building a string of forts to seemingly defend Portsmouth from the rest of England can start lots of myths.
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Oct 15, 2015 21:33
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Not combat ready is certainly a valid argument. That's not what you said, though. You said "not very good", which is ludicrous. Hazzard posted:That's the exact opposite of what all the exhibits were saying at the Fort itself when I visited. It had a crap ton on how the whole fort was a mistake after being built on the paranoia of a French invasion. Huge focus was placed on the cost of it, along with a huge gently caress off armoury of artillery pieces that seem to have been stolen from everywhere Britain seems to have won a war between Agincourt and the Crimea. The construction of the Palmerston Forts was an exercise in Francophobic hysteria, yes. But their actual intended function in the event of an invasion was to protect Portsmouth harbor from an enemy force with siege guns. Whether the forts were necessary is a different question for whether they were well designed for their intended role. One of the most basic truths of military history is that weapons systems can be extremely well-designed but entirely useless at the same time. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Oct 15, 2015 |
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Oct 15, 2015 21:34
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Devlan Mud posted:gently caress off Keldoclock.
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Oct 15, 2015 21:38
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KildarX posted:There a neat story behind this? I'm sure it would have been more interesting if I actually lived in Russia or had servers there.
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Oct 15, 2015 21:55
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Cyrano4747 posted:I know nothing about that for or its history so I won't comment directly, but I will say that the more you know about a subject the more errors, interpretive fallacies, and straight up bad history you find in museums. Some of it can be shockingly basic poo poo too. As someone who's currently in grad school studying museum education I agree completely.
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Oct 15, 2015 22:03
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Cyrano4747 posted:I know nothing about that for or its history so I won't comment directly, but I will say that the more you know about a subject the more errors, interpretive fallacies, and straight up bad history you find in museums. Some of it can be shockingly basic poo poo too.  Keep digging deeper, and eventually you will reach China.Somewhere there was a 5000 YEARS OF UNBROKEN CIVILIZATION GLORIOUS CHINA style anthropology museum which, in Engrish, bent truths into some kind of fractal pretzel. I know it was posted in one of the Ancient history threads, but it's probably buried in the archives now. I tried to find it, but I couldn't. Ensign Expendable posted:I'm sure it would have been more interesting if I actually lived in Russia or had servers there. That's one thing, and the other is that nothing I describe is secret. At best someone might try to get me under some mosaic theory bullshit, but I mean, these are basic, elementary principles of UAS. Chris Roberts warned the public about the insecurity of commercial airliners for years before he eventually went and hacked the engines on an airliner he was currently a passenger on (yeah, I don't know why he thought that was a good idea either), and only then did he actually get raided by the FBI. All of my playing around with the subject has been either theoretical or with my own personal UASs. There are two main attack surfaces- the aircraft itself and the controller, and it's not possible to build either to be fully secure. In my experience, rarely is more than a token effort made, and sometimes not even that. But again, that's one thing, it's less applicable to some sort of peer conflict where you have minutes, not weeks, to deal with the UAS. For those situations only a prepackaged solution is viable, like aforementioned airburst 25mm grenades. I'm sure there's not much stopping someone from stealing a tank either, you know? Not part of the mission parameters. Keldoclock fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Oct 15, 2015 |
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Oct 15, 2015 22:18
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Shut the gently caress up, Keldoclock.
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Oct 15, 2015 22:24
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Lol. Is that from some New York museum? Although, to be fair, the "official story" of a devilishly clever FBI and sophisticated inter-agency co-operation might help deter future attempts at espionage, and is more reassuring to the public than the true story, so I can see the reasoning behind releasing that version of events. No excuse for it still being out there 75 years later, of course.
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Oct 15, 2015 22:28
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Hazzard posted:I think so. AFAIK British artillery is fairly poorly organised for most of the early 19th century.
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Oct 15, 2015 22:42
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:That's not what you said, though. You said "not very good", which is ludicrous. Fair enough. I was really going for "not as good as perceived" more than anything.
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Oct 15, 2015 22:44
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HEY GAL posted:no i meant like tiny pieces that two or three people can push easily, that a regiment'll take with it while it advances Not that I'm aware of. No memory of it being mentioned in Red Coat and definitely not mentioned anywhere else, but information on British Artillery tends to be neglected in favour of Infantry in all the writing I've seen.
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Oct 15, 2015 22:47
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This is by a long shot not MilHist anymore, can you take it somewhere else please?
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Oct 15, 2015 22:50
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JcDent posted:All of the equipment in our Fort was a hilarious combination of 'B ^ O' and 'W ^ D' for this exact reason. Built from 1832-1837 with a pretend 1867 garrison, it's still easy to spot at what precise point in technological development Crimea happened. The Board of Ordinance was the government body responsible for basically every piece of kit that a British soldier or sailor touched from around the 1450s. Said kit was universally marked with this symbol:  At the fort this was usually on pieces of the fort itself. Fireplaces, cauldrons, cannons, the metal runners along the barbettes, anything older than the Crimean war. This is specifically because the Board did such a lovely job at supplying the troops during the Russian winter of 1854 that it caused a full blown scandal at home. The Board was summarily abolished and its services were taken over by the War Office, formerly known as the War Department. I can't speak much to the actual administrative consequences of this move, but the most identifiable effect of this was simply to change that 'B ^ O' to 'W ^ D' on military property. So our fort has a whole bunch of smooth-bore muzzle loaders from 1811-1815 along the walls marked with B^O and usually a 'GR' for George Reigns or George Rex or whatever. On our 'modern' breech-loading rifled equipment, this switches over to W ^ D and VR for Victoria Reigns.  Which, for example made it really easy to ballpark the date on a lot of artifacts at the fort. Anything with BO and VR markings dates between 1837 at the start of Victoria's reign and 1854 when the Board was abolished.
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Oct 15, 2015 22:54
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HEY GAL posted:are regimental guns still a thing in the 19th c Regimental guns are "kind of" a thing in the 19th c. The British have the Grasshopper gun, which was a 3lb cannon that was either used with an orange-sized ball or the world's limp-dick-est canister round. The 3lb gun weighed about 220lbs all in on its carriage, so it was man portable. A couple of the things could be attached to an infantry battalion, but were not organic. The French have integrated 4lb cannon. Both are small enough to use cartridges for loading. However, these things just weren't all that useful, for the most part. They are nice when you can't get a 9lb or 12lb field piece somewhere due to roads or terrain, but if you can use horses why not drag along a decent piece? They were commonly used in North America and colonial regions without infrastructure and where battalion-sized engagements were more common. edit: Dug up this inventory from the Peninsular war Strength of British artillery in Peninsula on 1st November 1808 (by Ltn.-Col. William Robe): 9 medium 12pdrs (new pattern) 5 long 6pdrs (new pattern) 21 light 6pdrs (new pattern) 4 light 3pdrs 4 heavy 5 ½ inch howitzers (new pattern) 7 light 5 ½ inch howitzers (new pattern) 2 light 5 ½ inch howitzers This is before the British introduced 9s (1809), which they liked because they had lower logistics requirements for about the same punch as a 12. The French thought the British to be horribly undergunned in terms of tubes. I think the typical ratio was about 2 guns per thousand for the British and more like 4 for the French. French artillery was state-of-the-art. Batteries were usually 4-5 6lb guns and 1 howitzer for foot batteries, and a mix of 12s, 6s and 5.5" howtizers for horse artillery. Batteries typically fought as units, but could be split and recombined to perform certain tasks or based on terrain and need. edit2: the weights are pretty instructive. A Gribeauval 12lb cannon could be dragged along by six horses. The British considered that their 12lb cannon required ten horses. KYOON GRIFFEY JR fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Oct 15, 2015 |
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Oct 15, 2015 22:56
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Fair enough. I was really going for "not as good as perceived" more than anything. Sorry if it seemed like I snapped at you, but it's a bit of a hot button for me. To be honest, the way the nineteenth century Royal Navy (especially in the Late Victorian period) is portrayed in a lot of history books is shockingly inaccurate to the point where, if anything, it could more accurately be described as "far better than perceived".
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Oct 15, 2015 23:03
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Let's play Good Post, Bad Post!Keldoclock posted:
Keldoclock posted:That's one thing, and the other is that nothing I describe is secret. At best someone might try to get me under some mosaic theory bullshit, but I mean, these are basic, elementary principles of UAS. Chris Roberts warned the public about the insecurity of commercial airliners for years before he eventually went and hacked the engines on an airliner he was currently a passenger on (yeah, I don't know why he thought that was a good idea either), and only then did he actually get raided by the FBI. All of my playing around with the subject has been either theoretical or with my own personal UASs. There are two main attack surfaces- the aircraft itself and the controller, and it's not possible to build either to be fully secure. In my experience, rarely is more than a token effort made, and sometimes not even that. But again, that's one thing, it's less applicable to some sort of peer conflict where you have minutes, not weeks, to deal with the UAS. For those situations only a prepackaged solution is viable, like aforementioned airburst 25mm grenades. I'm sure there's not much stopping someone from stealing a tank either, you know? Not part of the mission parameters.
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Oct 15, 2015 23:04
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Ensign Expendable posted:I got in poo poo with the Russian government for writing how old tanks were built, sounds pretty dangerous to me. Exactly what were they upset about?
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Oct 15, 2015 23:12
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Patton is what you get if you take a kid and feed him all the Southern lies about Grant and at the end of it he's like "gently caress yeah I'm that guy's reincarnation"
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Oct 15, 2015 23:15
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sullat posted:No, Buckingham was with Charles I as well. Supposedly after Buckingham got the chop, Charles started spending a lot more time with his wife, and ended up even falling for her... but then he got the chop. Charles II was "the Merry Monarch" who was more into mistresses than military adventurism. I don't know where you're getting that. Buckingham had influence over Charles because everyone had influence over Charles, because he was the highly suggestible type. I've never seen any reason to believe they were bumming, and the other men who have an undue influence on Charles tend not to be obviously sexy (see Archbishop Laud). James' favourites were dashing young men with hot asses, Charles needed an older brother. Buckingham was positioned to play both those roles.
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Oct 15, 2015 23:20
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Going back a bit to cannon weights and how most people are surprised by how heavy small cannon balls can be: It occurred to me that the popular image of the "cannon" that is in most peoples heads probably comes from images of them on ships. Everyone knows about pirate ships etc if only from movies, but how many people have really looked at a ACW field piece of something similar? My guess would be that the popular conception of cannon balls the size of heads comes from the seriously large naval pieces (e.g. 24 pound guns). Of course those depictions are kind of silly 99% of the time anyways - you see lots of gently caress off huge cannons even on small boats and almost no swivel guns, top deck pieces, etc.
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Oct 15, 2015 23:24
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besides, charles and henrietta's interactions with each other were soppy as hellMr Enderby posted:James' favourites were dashing young men with hot asses 
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Oct 15, 2015 23:24
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Cyrano4747 posted:how many people have really looked at a ACW field piece of something similar?
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Oct 15, 2015 23:25
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Cyrano4747 posted:Going back a bit to cannon weights and how most people are surprised by how heavy small cannon balls can be: The museum I went to in Pennsylvania earlier this year actually had a Civil War field piece and its limber on display.    
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Oct 15, 2015 23:28
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Generation Internet posted:So our fort has a whole bunch of smooth-bore muzzle loaders from 1811-1815 along the walls marked with B^O and usually a 'GR' for George Reigns or George Rex or whatever. Georgius Rex actually 
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Oct 15, 2015 23:29
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