Libluini posted:

Keldoclock is one of those people who, if real life were like a video game, would have put all his points at character-generation into the "Obnoxiousness"-stat.

SeanBeansShako posted:

Back on subject, ROCKET ARTILLERY.

SeanBeansShako posted:

Back on subject, ROCKET ARTILLERY.

Splode posted:

The "wargame" franchise would have me believe that it's not very good, as it's scarier than regular artillery but not concentrated enough to do any real damage.

This strikes me as probably bullshit for the sake of game balance. Is it?

Splode posted:

The "wargame" franchise would have me believe that it's not very good, as it's scarier than regular artillery but not concentrated enough to do any real damage.

This strikes me as probably bullshit for the sake of game balance. Is it?

Cythereal posted:

You do realize none of these things existed in WW1, right? And the A-H wasn't even issuing cold-weather clothes or enough food?

Oh wait you're dumb as a post about this, too, just like you were earlier in the thread. Please stop posting.

Ensign Expendable posted:

A Soviet M-31 brigade covered an area of 1200x1000 m with 1152 rockets per salvo, or roughly one rocket per 32 meter by 32 meter square. The safe distance for infantry from a rocket hit was 400 meters.

Ensign Expendable posted:

Officers and NCOs in Soviet penal units were paid normally, those sent there as punishment served as privates and earned a private's pay with no bonuses they were preciously entitled to. Upon completion of their punishment, their rank and payment were restored.

Edit: on the phone and can't look it up, but the officers may have been paid triple. I remember that the time served in a penal unit willingly counted for triple when it came to promotions and stuff, but I can't remember if the same applied to pay

Xerxes17 posted:

I actually found this post to be a bit informative in a general sense

Ensign Expendable posted:

Update: Keldoclock posts in GBS, GBS now also mad about Keldoclock.

Eela6 posted:

is this a word?

Ensign Expendable posted:

http://tankarchives.blogspot.ca/2014/12/rocket-bike.html

Xerxes17 posted:

From my copy of "Penalty Strike" by Alexander Pyl'cyn who was a normal officer in a Penalty Battalion . From memory I recall mention (That I can't find unfortunately) that the shtrafniks considered themselves to be "2/3rds of a Guardsmen" as that's how much pay they received. Mind you this was for a Penalty Battalion which would be comprised of penal officers, not enlisted, which might be different. Also, the author's unit spent most of his time fighting under Rokossovski's command, which might have also modified things somewhat.

There's also a funny moment when some officer is cussing out Alexander and threatens to send him to a penalty unit. He just starts laughing and pulls out his ID card with his unit on it and walks off.

Eela6 posted:

Wow. This is fascinating! I would love to hear more about artillery in general, as well as the training and development of artillery technique and artillerymen (is this a word?) Studying math myself, I've always figured if I were an old-time soldier I would end up in artillery.

P.s: I really appreciate the contributions that ensign e, hey gal, etc. make in the history threads. Its reinvigorated my love for history.

Arquinsiel posted:

Wargame seems to regard artillery as a thing you use to let the enemy know where your FOB is located so they can send planes after it TBH. Artillery is woefully under-performing there even against infantry in the open.

Ensign Expendable posted:

Then boy, do I have some numbers for you:

Slavvy posted:

Every game, both table top and video, seems to regard artillery as something you do to irritate and discombobulate the enemy in preparation for killing them all with your troops. But every game is also built on the premise that destroying enemy troops = winning so if arty was as effective as it is IRL there would be no fun games.

Mazz posted:

It's pretty hard to explain to some people just how lethal modern artillery/air power is because it's hard to even put in perspective for them.

Keldoclock posted:

Is it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_qJm3HrjWo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vF-WvIL82Q

Keldoclock posted:

Is it?

Eela6 posted:

P.s: I really appreciate the contributions that ensign e, hey gal, etc. make in the history threads. Its reinvigorated my love for history.

Cythereal posted:

A very drunk zoo in all likelihood.

Keldoclock posted:

Both the Colossus and Z3 are/were computers with very limited functionality. However, as any computer scientist, code monkey or poor bastard who has ever had to look at a pbx, elevator, wearable, covert listening device etc knows, with sufficient sacrifice of speed you can implement complex functions from simpler ones in stupid, inelegant and expensive ways.
The Z3 was demonstrated to be Turing-complete, in sense, the same as the computer you are using now in terms of possible operations, in 1998 by Raul Rojas, by extending its functionality via the linked horrible hack.

Although it is behind a paywall, there is also a similar proof for extending complete functionality from Colossus.

So, Libluini, both the Colossus and Z3 are programmable computers as we understand them today, at least by formal proof- in actuality they were both specialized tools that were really only good at doing one task, like, say, your printer. Your printer could run any program the computer you're posting with can, if you are willing to sit there and slowly lose your sanity long enough to get it to work. However, you are absolutely correct that the Z3 predates the Colossus. I explain my thought process thusly:






Ultimately there are surely more contenders for the title of "first computer", and just like "first lightbulb" "first domesticated plant" "first automobile" "first crossbow", we will probably never know. It seems that tools just manifest themselves into reality when the wills of their creators demand it, and people are far too much alike for there to really be a first example- even if we know for a fact that a given object is the first one, we certainly can't track down the concepts.

Libluini posted:

Mazz posted:

Wargame Airland Battle treated arty like this and they took a step in the lethal direction for Red Dragon. While it was great for knocking down OP mens in houses, great artillery almost always leads to very static gameplay since it's as punishing to clusters of attacking troops as is it to defenders. It's such a hard thing to really balance well, for a video game especially when you factor in all the different kinds like mortars, tubes and rockets. Artillery sucks.

It's pretty hard to explain to some people just how lethal modern artillery/air power is because it's hard to even put in perspective for them. In reality, modern rocket artillery is loving terrifying because they can carry very scary payloads a very long and accurate way. When people get in conversations about modern war I just try to emphasize how loving scary it is with those examples where the Israelis double tapped those Gaza buildings to alert the occupants, and then make them disappear. Air power, but still a good example.

Libluini posted:

Wikipedia is poo poo, news at eleven

Also you are totally wrong about the Z3. The Z3 had no specialized task, it was a programmable digital computer which could do whatever you programmed it to do. The Colossus only could decrypt things and you indeed would need to do a lot of wrangling with the thing to make it do anything else.

In the most simple terms possible: The Colossus was like a printer. Theoretically it could do something else besides it's task, but that would need a lot of effort to do. The Z3 was more like the later home computers in that it wasn't specialized on a single task. If you take the time to learn the weird programming language Konrad Zuse wrote, you could do anything with it a later computer like the C64 could do. Welp, you'd need a better monitor of course but you get the gist.

Your last paragraph is weird and wrong bullshit, so I assume you would have deleted it if you hadn't forgotten to proofread your post and just be nice and ignore it.

The Lone Badger posted:

Is rocket artillery also useful for minimising the effect of counterbattery? Once you've launched your rockets the launcher truck is now much lighter and can quickly gently caress off, and if it does get blown up at least it was much cheaper than tube artillery.

Panzeh posted:

The Soviets were pretty good at shooting and scooting with Katyushas from what I understand.

Rabhadh posted:

There's the great story of the katyusah batteries hiding under the river bank of the Volga in Stalingrad, reversing out of cover to launch then back into cover to reload

Cythereal posted:

There were also periodic attempts to attach rocket artillery to front-line tanks, particularly during WW2 including the Calliope and Whizbang.

Jobbo_Fett posted:

Don't forget (successful) attempts at attaching them to any vehicle whatsoever.

Nenonen posted:

Nenonen posted:

Trin Tragula posted:

100 Years Ago

This British-French intervention in the battle for Serbia really isn't going very well at all; the Brits insist on guarding Salonika in case somebody tries to steal it, and the French are slogging forward over extremely difficult roads, muttering vague imprecations about how difficult resupply is going to be. The fighting Father Galaup goes in search of his German bayonet and has quite the adventure in No Man's Land, as Louis Barthas's new binoculars get him into trouble. Bernard Adams panders to the Internet, and Sir Ian Hamilton's place in our story comes to its final end.

nothing to seehere posted:

The only thing really missing from the Z3 was conditional branching (IF X then Y ELSE Z), so it's not fully equivalent in instruction set to modern programming, but it's been proved that doesn't stop you emulating whatever a C64 could do if you have enough time and memory, just in pratise.

The thing is the Germans never really used it for much, Konrad Zuse only developing it as a aid to civil engineering projects in the first place, and such much of the potential benefit from having such a good machine available to them was lost. It was used for a few things, but not nearly as much as it could be, and Zuse didn't do much of academic note afterwards IIRC.

Trin Tragula posted:

100 Years Ago

This British-French intervention in the battle for Serbia really isn't going very well at all; the Brits insist on guarding Salonika in case somebody tries to steal it, and the French are slogging forward over extremely difficult roads, muttering vague imprecations about how difficult resupply is going to be. The fighting Father Galaup goes in search of his German bayonet and has quite the adventure in No Man's Land, as Louis Barthas's new binoculars get him into trouble. Bernard Adams panders to the Internet, and Sir Ian Hamilton's place in our story comes to its final end.