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I was sure it was a 9/11 reference. But are you saying the sailors weren't doing an inside job?
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Oct 19, 2015 23:00
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My guess: Copper resists corrosion at sea and is harder than lead so rats can't bite through it. Also, lots of copper sheeting was available as it was often used on the hull of wooden ships to keep barnacles at bay. Copper ions floating around may have helped reduce microbial infestation, too.
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Oct 19, 2015 23:09
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Was there just tons of copper beneath the ground then? I was under the impression from somewhere that most of the copper in Britain was mined out by the Romans, leaving tin. Which was why Cornwall became famous for tin, it was all they had left.
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Oct 19, 2015 23:17
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Copper sheathing was really common in the Royal Navy as a way of preventing corrosion from salt water, so if they wanted some kind of anti-rat armor it would have been an easily available choice. It did take them a while to figure out to alloy the copper, as otherwise it would react with the salt water and corrode anyway.Hazzard posted:Was there just tons of copper beneath the ground then? I was under the impression from somewhere that most of the copper in Britain was mined out by the Romans, leaving tin. Which was why Cornwall became famous for tin, it was all they had left. Wales started producing from a new copper mine at the end of the 18th century, when coppering started kicking into high gear with Britain's sudden need for a ton of ships spending long time at sea fighting every other colonial power. It still cost nearly 6 times the cost of the wood to make the ship.
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Oct 19, 2015 23:18
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chitoryu12 posted:It still cost nearly 6 times the cost of the wood to make the ship. What's your source for that? I'd be interested in reading it.
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Oct 19, 2015 23:23
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Nebakenezzer posted:For reasons I'd love to have explained to me, you can't bake bread while aboard ship, so they used to make ship's biscuit - think a bread roll, but with no yeast at all - and keep it in a 'bread room', a special room aboard ship that they kept the rats out of by lining the room with copper. (No idea why that worked.) Add to these difficulties that ship's provisions were bought, even in the Navy, from viticuliers - merchants who would happily try and sell you rotten garbage in barrels labeled food. You certainly could bake bread - the largest model of the RN's 'Brodie pattern' stove (as fitted to first-rates) had space to (theoretically) bake 80 loaves at a time. But with 850 men on board that's not going to go far and that's using all the oven space that could be better used for other meals, so fresh bread was only semi-regularly provided for the wardroom and the sick bay, with the rest of the crew being issued with biscuit. Bread using the best quality flour and kept in a sealed container only lasted about eight days at sea, so really wasn't viable as a staple in the way that the 'hard tack' biscuit was. By the Georgian period the RN had a pretty good grip on what kept men healthy at sea (even if the exact science wasn't understood) but the real problem was the logistics of supplying ships with the provisions and keeping them in good condition on a voyage. Men of all ranks on a freshly-provisioned ship on a short voyage could eat very well while if you were on blockade duty for months in the Bay of Biscay in winter you could quickly be subsisting on porridge, biscuit, duff and salted pork. There was also the skill of the cook onboard to consider. Meat was issued four times a week (pork on two days, beef on two days) and was usually salted from barrels but some captains allowed officers (and, more rarely, the ship's company as a whole) to buy a few pigs or ship to keep live to provide fresh meat, but to provide a decent amount for every man on even a small ship like a sixth-rate frigate would need about 80 pigs on board, which clearly wasn't practical. Meat was served with boiled vegetables, usually peas and spices. Each day one man from each mess would collect the meal ration for him and his messmates and take the whole lot to the galley to be cooked in one go in one bag per mess - the cook usually did very little actual 'cooking' but was expected to provide a soup to be ladelled out for each man with his meal, too. On the non-meat ('banyan') days the men were issued with biscuit, butter and cheese as well as oatmeal and porridge. More often that not the cook would spend time on the 'hot meal' days also preparing the infamous duff, which is basically a suet pudding (beef fat, breadcrumbs, fruit, spices - all handy leftovers from the other provisions) which provided something heavy, rich and filling. There were variations such as the plum duff and the jam roly-poly but it's all basically the same. That's the basic provisions taken care of but any half-decent commanding officer (and any vaguely enthusiastic crew) would take any chance to stock up with much more variety than what the Admiralty victualling list required. What exactly those extras were depending on the state of the ship's finances (and the wealth of the captain/officers) and the region the ship was serving in - the Mediterranean, the Middle East, India and South America offered huge potential for buying-in more exotic fruits and vegetables while Australia, the South Pacific, East Africa and other stations did not. It's also worth pointing out that there was, officially, no difference between the rations given to officers and those given to enlisted men, but it was socially expected that the 'gentlemen' would eat to a better standard. The wardroom officers would invariably club together to buy their own additional provisions to add a bit of freshness or variety to their meals while any captain with some spare cash could live quite comfortably - this is where Jack Aubrey's soused hog's face comes into the picture (it's a boiled-up pig's head with the meat soaked in wine and vinegar for a few days). An admiral with a big budget, a large ship and a good personal cook and steward and a large party to entertain could offer up a weekly five-course meal with a choice of meats, pies, fruits, puddings and vegetables.
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Oct 19, 2015 23:25
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It should also be noted that this is the era when the UK is drawing resources from half the globe in the form of colonies. Even if every last nugget of copper was dug up before the Saxons hit the island Australia, South Africa, and Canada still had mountains of it. That's also ignoring just buying it on the world market. edit: it wouldn't surprise me if the operation in Wales was more of a strategic domestic capacity to hedge against blockades than their #1 source of copper.
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Oct 19, 2015 23:26
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Hogge Wild posted:What's your source for that? I'd be interested in reading it. The Commend of the Ocean by Nicholas Roger.
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Oct 19, 2015 23:26
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thanks
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Oct 19, 2015 23:35
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ArchangeI posted:The Bundeswehr report specifically states that the accuracy issues persist with all ammunition types and production lots. And why would they not? The only way ammunition could fix accuracy issues caused by the barrel warping out of alignment due to uneven warming in the sun is if the ammunition is guided into the target after firing. Which would be the most German solution imaginable. Yeah, but for every issue in German procurement you can always say the Bundeswehr states it's poo poo and the corporation building and delivering the stuff will claim it's not poo poo, the Bundeswehr is poo poo at using it. Then the civilian politicians reading the documents will crumble the Bundeswehr-papers and throw them into the nearest wastepaper basket because they're written by evil, child-killing soldiers and not civilians. Until someone finally gets fed up and starts leaking the military papers to the media, which gives you scandals like this one. 
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Oct 19, 2015 23:41
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Nebakenezzer posted:Despite the fact that people had known about the concept of anti-scorbutics for centuries, and seal meat is known to be a singularly good anti-scorbutic (the Inuit of Northern Canada are the only people in the world who could live on an almost totally meat diet, because seal meat contains almost all the nutrition that other peoples get from vegetables) the Scott expedition still had all sorts of problems with Scurvy. It wasn't that they didn't know that seal meat prevented scurvy. It was that they didn't know why. On one of Scott's expeditions, he pack along tons of seal meat that had been freshly slaughtered, boiled, and dehydrated to keep it from spoiling. It just didn't occur to anyone that boiling the seal meat would make it useless at preventing scurvy. The pemmican expedition was Scott's third try at the pole. On the first try he brought lime juice (that had been boiled in copper kettles, destroying the vitamin C). On the second try he went with Seal meat.
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Oct 20, 2015 05:33
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Libluini posted:the corporation building and delivering the stuff will claim it's not poo poo, the Bundeswehr is poo poo at using it. Yes, the guys training and using the equipment are the least likely to know how to use it. Civilians.txt Then again, the Dutch and the German (and likely Belgian) armies are probably looking for a reason to exist at all.
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Oct 20, 2015 05:36
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JcDent posted:Then again, the Dutch and the German (and likely Belgian) armies are probably looking for a reason to exist at all. On the one hand, Russia's latest escapades probably have some potential for pro-military political capital in Europe. On the other hand, the US doesn't seem any less likely to stick its fingers into any potential European toaster ovens.
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Oct 20, 2015 05:39
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Cythereal posted:On the one hand, Russia's latest escapades probably have some potential for pro-military political capital in Europe. On the other hand, the US doesn't seem any less likely to stick its fingers into any potential European toaster ovens. But don't the European armies need to act as a speed bump while the US ships its army to Europe?
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Oct 20, 2015 05:44
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sullat posted:But don't the European armies need to act as a speed bump while the US ships its army to Europe? That's why we have Poland (Getting The Short End Of The Stick Since The Deluge): we provide recon, they provide fighting until NATO QRF (Americans, lets be realistic) come and bail us out. I do/don't want to get into current affairs by discussing German or Austrian willingness to go fight against their gas supplier On the other hand, Portugal has an army, I saw those guys (and girl) with my own eyes, and who's gonna attack them?
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Oct 20, 2015 05:50
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JcDent posted:On the other hand, Portugal has an army, I saw those guys (and girl) with my own eyes, and who's gonna attack them? Poortugal
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Oct 20, 2015 06:00
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JcDent posted:On the other hand, Portugal has an army, I saw those guys (and girl) with my own eyes, and who's gonna attack them? Atlanteans, clearly.
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Oct 20, 2015 06:21
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JcDent posted:On the other hand, Portugal has an army, I saw those guys (and girl) with my own eyes, and who's gonna attack them? Spain, after an emotional rollercoaster of a bender, deciding they've shared the peninsula long enough.
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Oct 20, 2015 08:00
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FAUXTON posted:Spain, after an emotional rollercoaster of a bender, deciding they've shared the peninsula long enough. But enough about Gibraltar
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Oct 20, 2015 11:01
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MikeCrotch posted:But enough about Gibraltar Even if Spain re-took Gibraltar, its not like they'll be able to Basque in the glory.
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Oct 20, 2015 11:03
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JcDent posted:That's why we have Poland (Getting The Short End Of The Stick Since The Deluge): we provide recon, they provide fighting until NATO QRF (Americans, lets be realistic) come and bail us out. Portugal had a lot of wars in the past, you know. Back in the 50s Portugals was still trying to hold its colonial empire together. German willingness is, luckily for Poland and the Baltikum, not an issue the way the NATO FRF is set up: German tanks are probably already fighting the Russians for several days before our sad sacks of poo poo (sorry, I meant to say German politicians) finally take notice. Then they face the choice of either breaking all their treaties simultaneously, or just going with the flow. They are a cowardly lot, however. So even the best friends of Russia will just go ahead and declare war, because it is easier then the other option. Eastern Europe: Saved by fait accompli.
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Oct 20, 2015 11:40
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Libluini posted:Portugal had a lot of wars in the past, you know. Back in the 50s Portugals was still trying to hold its colonial empire together. My ex-girlfriend did a foreign student exchange with a Portugeuse family as a teenager. While staying with the family the dad decided this would be a good time to break out the stories about how he and his unit bayoneted some kids while stationed in Mozambique 
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Oct 20, 2015 11:44
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Libluini posted:Portugal had a lot of wars in the past, you know. Back in the 50s Portugals was still trying to hold its colonial empire together. I was hoping for Poland not folding once the ushanka appears on the horizon 
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Oct 20, 2015 11:56
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Deteriorata posted:My guess: Rats and mice will eat anything, including plastics, foam. So they could probably chew through wood to get to a food source. The copper is just a barrier they can't chew through as you say, and something in ready supply not as heavy as iron or steel. Metal is the one thing they can't eat of course. On land, farmers and people living in mice infested areas often have to plug all gaps with steel wool because they can get through the tiniest gap. E: I've had to do that a few times on air con jobs after mice have gotten in once and chewed through all the low voltage DC thin cables eating all the plastic insulation, or the pipe foam insulation. Fo3 fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Oct 20, 2015 |
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Oct 20, 2015 12:12
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100 Years Ago In Serbia, I'm comparing the position and attitude of General Sarrail, the French commander, to that taken by the recently-departed Sir Ian Hamilton on Gallipoli. Similar situations, one important difference. In Artois, Louis Barthas has just been volunteered by Sublieutenant Malvezy to become a grenadier corporal, which provides a convenient excuse to discuss the changing role of the common rifleman in British and French doctrine (they're literally being forced to completely change their building blocks of how an attack works, so much for "they stared uncomprehendingly at the trenches"); and Bernard Adams, currently in reserve billets, continues with his heady cocktail of making interesting observations while also patronising the men at regular intervals.
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Oct 20, 2015 12:42
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Fo3 posted:The copper is just a barrier they can't chew through as you say, and something in ready supply not as heavy as iron or steel.
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Oct 20, 2015 14:06
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JcDent posted:Yes, the guys training and using the equipment are the least likely to know how to use it. Civilians.txt It's not about civilians, its about being proud of a thing you made and not wanting people to poo poo on it. You see it all the time, especially in software. loving users, why can't they see the genius of my program and insist on "features" and "user friendliness"?
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Oct 20, 2015 14:18
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my dad posted:Poortugal A sad military tradition of always being broke  .
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Oct 20, 2015 14:24
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I normally just read this thread, but I just wanted to share a podcast I just listened to. It's milhist related, but I don't want to give anything else away. Seriously listen to it. http://thememorypalace.us/2015/10/mary-walker-would-wear-what-she-wanted/ (The promo stuff ends at 4:00)
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Oct 20, 2015 15:07
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago Proving that one of the worst places to be in the first 2 years of the war was being a political rival of General Joffre. I'm surprised him and Haig didn't bond more over their mutual love of dumping huge steaming piles of poo poo on their subordinates any time anything went wrong
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Oct 20, 2015 15:35
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Bradley IFV question. So, it holds six troops a time correct? And (US) squads are two 4 man fire teams plus a leader, totalling 9. So how does a squad handle transport. Does each fire team get their own Bradley, two squads share 3 Bradleys or what?
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Oct 20, 2015 15:53
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MikeCrotch posted:Proving that one of the worst places to be in the first 2 years of the war was being a political rival of General Joffre. I'm surprised him and Haig didn't bond more over their mutual love of dumping huge steaming piles of poo poo on their subordinates any time anything went wrong
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Oct 20, 2015 15:58
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Deptfordx posted:Bradley IFV question. Coming from Grey's LP? I don't understand why Bradley is so maligned when BMP-2 also carries 7 dudes, has an autocannon and shoot ATGMs. Don't get why they don't like Stryker; it's an APC, what's so bad about it?
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Oct 20, 2015 16:14
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Deptfordx posted:Bradley IFV question. I always thought squad/fireteam numbers were somewhat fluid and it's unlikely one squad gets transported alone unless they are walking and there are other squads nearby, maybe it's more like 6 bradleys for 4 typical squads, or some of the crew is part of that squad.
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Oct 20, 2015 16:23
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Deptfordx posted:Bradley IFV question. 3 squads go into 4 vehicles. It looks like this:  here's a (somewhat dated) depiction of the entire platoon including vehicle crews:  JcDent posted:Coming from Grey's LP? As far as I can tell, most of the amateur criticisms of the Bradley are 90% based off of Pentagon Wars and 10% based off of youtube and liveleak. In reality it has done very, very well in its intended role throughout its service life. It is far from perfect though; the main issues are is its weight and sustainment requirements, which is pretty universal to mechanized formations. The BMP-2 is really a different class of vehicle; it is much lighter and the two aren't terribly comparable in terms of protection. The heavy IFV platform in general is getting a bit long in the tooth and the Bradley's are probably closer to the end of their lives than the beginning, but the chassis is still excellent and will be around for a long, long time in one form or another (eg, new Paladin). As for the Stryker I'd argue it is one of the better DoD acquisition programs of the post-WWII era, period. It has done its intended mission exceptionally well and the platform still has a ton of room to grow. As an aside, with the pending addition of the autocannon it is a lot more comparable to the BMP-2. All that being said I'm not entirely sure who you were referring to so if I'm out in left field in responding this, that's why. bewbies fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Oct 20, 2015 |
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Oct 20, 2015 16:24
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HEY GAL posted:can anyone think of any conflict in which the officers on the same side are not huge weeping cocks to one another I just read the bit in Shattered Sword where one of the Imperial Japanese admirals got Yamamoto in a headlock because he wouldn't let Hiryu and Soryu go on a mission So no
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Oct 20, 2015 16:40
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JcDent posted:Coming from Grey's LP? IIRC the main difference between BMP and Bradley loadout is that in BMPs the squad leader, who is also the IFV's commander, dismounts with the squad, so you have more dismounts than there are passenger seats. Bradley had a convoluted and expensive development process and there's a book and a film about that, so I'm not surprised that those issues are well known. Whether it's fair or not. Some of the dislike for Stryker probably springs from doctrinal quarrels, as not everyone was happy about the doctrinal switch from RAH RAH FULDA GAP WW3 prepping to putting rapid response, smaller conflicts and UN police action capabilities in the foreground. Also Stryker ICV is undergunned compared to BTR-82, and Stryker MGS looks like an APC had a baby with an AMX-13. Finally it's not a box on tracks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwHqLtK_TpY
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Oct 20, 2015 16:50
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JcDent posted:Coming from Grey's LP? The Bradley's maligned in popular culture because the anti-Bradley faction made a movie about their opinions. Ultimately it's just a vehicle with tradeoffs like any other.
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Oct 20, 2015 16:55
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Yeah, the problem is not that it's a bad combat vehicle per se but that it took a hilarious amount of time to develop and cost way, way too much money to get to just an ok combat vehicle, mostly because it was supposed to perform as many roles as possible to 'save money'. A good comparison is the F-35 - like, the F-35 is a totally ok strike plane and is better than a lot of other stuff out there. The problem is that it's not worth more money than an F-22 and is not going to be able to fill all the roles that LockMart & the DoD have heaped onto it.
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Oct 20, 2015 17:03
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So what made castles and large forts an attractive thing in war pre long range accurate artillery? Wouldn't it just be easier to pillage the land around the fort and then leave? It's not like the emplacement can hold enough troops to affect a large army?
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Oct 20, 2015 17:05
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