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Tomn posted:Well, allowing the Japanese to walk into heavily prepared defenses would have... bewbies posted:First, I think it would have been almost impossible to convince the top levels of government that the Japanese were ballsy enough (and capable of) mounting a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor. We didn't think much of the Japanese at that point and the Pacific Fleet was probably the largest and most capable surface fleet in the world at the time (from a traditional assessment of "how many battleships do you have and how big are they", at least). If you did have some sort of absolutely ironclad intelligence that the Japanese were gonna do this thing, and you had a reasonable estimate of their timeline and position, I think they likely would have sailed the fleet out to meet them while furiously negotiating trying to prevent a shooting war at the same time. A high seas fight between the intact 1941 Pacific Fleet and the IJN would have been absolutely crazy. Pearl Harbor by Alan D. Zimm goes over this. You didn't need to convince top-level people, just convince Kimmal/Short to keep their level of preparedness up for ONE MORE WEEK. Also, it would make an absolutely huge difference. Chapter nine maths out that scenario to create an estimate. All air defenses combined, with 40 minutes of warning, could shoot down between 31% and 88% of the attacking force (depending on whether you want to take the higher or lower estimate). Many of the ships could possibly have been saved with watertight integrity set (particularly Oklahoma).
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Dec 7, 2015 23:19
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Hawgh posted:A question: A few pages back, You mentioned some papers detailing people regularly hanging around enemy camps, and returning. How close did your guys camp to each other? Anyway, it varies depending on what's going on and where everyone is, from "kinda far" to "the night before Luetzen, people could practically talk to one another" but the way everything went down before that fight was weird quote:And more generally, does anyone know something about how close armies could get to each other, before they had throw down, throughout history? HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Dec 7, 2015 |
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Dec 7, 2015 23:25
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HEY GAL posted:Not enemy camps, I think. Just "enemies." 30yw armies are almost always spread out hugely. You only collect everyone if you think there's going to be a thing, and even then there's always a sort of cloud of dudes leaving and coming back, usually to get food or go haying. (Most of a soldier's time is spent haying.)Sometimes those dudes encounter their enemies, who are doing the same thing. I don't think one of these guys could stroll on into a big central Imperialist camp (pretty sure that document was from after the Saxons switched sides) and go "Hey man, how's it going?" Is that "haying" in the agricultural sense?
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Dec 7, 2015 23:37
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chitoryu12 posted:Is that "haying" in the agricultural sense? edit: also you're really close in sieges, in one of the sieges ernst von mansfeld was involved in the lines were close enough that the men could "touch pikes and yell insults at one another," which is a great phrase
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Dec 7, 2015 23:40
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The more you talk about 30YW armies, the more I imagine them as moving festival campsites with pikes and guns.
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Dec 7, 2015 23:42
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Chillyrabbit posted:Since today is Dec 7 I was wondering, what if the Americans did know the attack on Pearl Harbor was happening? Since I keep on hearing about the advance knowledge conspiracy. Apparently there was some warning of the attack. A primitive radar station had been set up and spotted a huge blip, indicating a large number of incoming planes about 130 miles out. The lieutenant in charge thought it was a flight of incoming B-17s and told the operator not to worry about it. Less than an hour later the bombs started falling.
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Dec 7, 2015 23:47
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Ensign Expendable posted:Yeah, no Panther with an 88 mm gun was ever built. The Panther had higher muzzle velocity than the Tiger, the Tiger's gun wasn't actually that exceptional. Again: Jadgpanther! Ensign Expendable posted:The transmission was in the rear, so you didn't have to run a crankshaft along the floor of the tank, therefore you could make it lower. That saves a lot of metal. Then there are the ridiculous electro tanks that also had to carry huge generators with them, including two tons of (very expensive) copper. It was just SO COMPLECTED What was Porsche's rationale for hybrid drivetrains, anyway? He thought super-tanks were going to be metaphorically huge, and knew hybrid drivetrains were the one practical drive system? BRB, I want to see if I can find out what the drivetrain of those giant-rear end wheel excavators are like-
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Dec 7, 2015 23:49
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Deteriorata posted:Apparently there was some warning of the attack. A primitive radar station had been set up and spotted a huge blip, indicating a large number of incoming planes about 130 miles out. The lieutenant in charge thought it was a flight of incoming B-17s and told the operator not to worry about it. It's a bit of a gently caress up, but it basically consisted of poor phone conversation and the Japanese coming in on almost exactly the same bearing the B17's actually came in on. What in my mind was the really negligent thing is that at 6:30 there's a destroyer attacking a mini-sub in Pearl Harbour bay and this somehow does not result in the Fleet being put on alert.
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Dec 8, 2015 00:03
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Hawgh posted:True that. My favourite professor was Czech. Although his last name was "Serbian". Not as in, etymology. His name literally meant Serbian. I wonder what are the odds of his surname being the result of Habsburg shenanigans, since the Habsburgs loving loved simultaneously not giving a gently caress about their subjects' identities and enforcing the naming that resulted from bureaucratic fuckups. A bunch of Roma, Serbs, and some Croats were picked up from Habsburg Croatia and settled all over modern day Czech Republic after being forcibly given the surname "Croat" to keep the bureaucracy simple, and it's quite possible that something similar happened to your professor's ancestors, except they got tagged "Serbian". (Or I could be horribly wrong, of course) My family (Serbs) were recorded as Vlachs (ethnic group related to Romanians) for quite a while after fleeing from the Ottoman Empire to the Habsburg Empire because "Vlach" was also a general slur for Orthodox Christians and nobody important gave enough of a poo poo to correct the error. Hell, while the "Croats" fighting with Hey Gal's dudes were indeed mostly actual Croats, any light cav dudes from the Balkans would get stuck with the name. My condolences to anyone trying to figure that mess out.
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Dec 8, 2015 00:03
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How much work did mercenary companies put into taking care of their dead?
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Dec 8, 2015 00:08
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my dad posted:Hell, while the "Croats" fighting with Hey Gal's dudes were indeed mostly actual Croats i think it's just Imperial shorthand for "from there, mostly" "also fuzzy hats and tall boots" the most famous one's from cyprus and i ran into a cousin of that guy who was busily plundering Mansfeld's estates--his name was Nelli Marzon, at least the German talking to him thought it was fun Isolano story: so he takes an enemy's flag in combat, which is a huge deal, and presents it to Wallenstein himself. Wallenstein gives him 4,000 ducats on the spot and throws him a banquet. The next morning he rolls up--he's gambled all of it away over the night. So Wallenstein gives him two thousand more
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Dec 8, 2015 00:12
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Nebakenezzer posted:Again: Jadgpanther! The idea actually isn't bad. Having an electric motor drive your vehicle gives you a really fine amount of control over how much power you want to put out. You kind of don't want to do this in a tank, in the middle of a war, while copper is an extremely rare strategic resource that you're running out of.
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Dec 8, 2015 00:14
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Alchenar posted:It's a bit of a gently caress up, but it basically consisted of poor phone conversation and the Japanese coming in on almost exactly the same bearing the B17's actually came in on. Yeah that was a huge fuckup. Even if you don't necessarily believe the dude, it's the kind of thing that's worth a bit more consideration.
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Dec 8, 2015 00:15
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SlothfulCobra posted:How much work did mercenary companies put into taking care of their dead? if they die in combat, the part where you force the local civilians to bury them, anonymous and naked, is optional. you can also just leave unless they're famous, people go to huge efforts to take care of the bodies of the famous dead. Gustavus Adolphus was embalmed and borne to stockholm in some big convoy, Wallenstein took Pappenheim to Prague with him, and there's a memoir of an Oberstin (an Oberst's wife, you call them by the female form of their husband's title) whose husband died in one of the Northern Wars and she drove to get his body, in winter, and bring him back. one of her sons died on the trip "when all of his teeth erupted at once." edit: that last chick's in Davis's Women at the Margins, if you care to read about her HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Dec 8, 2015 |
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Dec 8, 2015 00:16
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Kafouille posted:It would certainly have been cheaper, but at that point it's a whole new tank and you're taking the very same development risks you had with the Panther, with the same risks one of the cost-engineered components is going to be flawed in a way you didn't anticipate and bring down the thing. The reason something like a Sherman was reliable was not that it was 30 tons, the reason it's reliable is that by 1944 US Ordnance had spent years testing and refining the components that got into it in relative peace and quiet. Don't forget the T-34 which had many an issue when it was first being produced, but they were able to hammer out the problems while having a good armor layout. The Pz IV was similar, minus the angled armour. The Panther was supposed to replace it while providing a good "base" for future work, which obviously never worked out because of a flawed design decision.
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Dec 8, 2015 00:24
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HEY GAL posted:one of her sons died on the trip "when all of his teeth erupted at once." Is this a period-specific description of something or some superstition? Or is it a terrifying disease I've never heard of? Or did he do battle with The Mountain?
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Dec 8, 2015 00:40
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Pontius Pilate posted:Is this a period-specific description of something or some superstition? Or is it a terrifying disease I've never heard of? Or did he do battle with The Mountain?
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Dec 8, 2015 00:42
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My first thought was that his gums suddenly start bleeding from scurvy or similar.
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Dec 8, 2015 00:46
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HEY GAL posted:if they die in combat, the part where you force the local civilians to bury them, anonymous and naked, is optional. you can also just leave There's the ritual Stealing Of The Boots, isn't there? (also, teeth)
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Dec 8, 2015 00:46
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nothing to seehere posted:My first thought was that his gums suddenly start bleeding from scurvy or similar. Or maybe an abscess, given the state of dental hygiene in that era.
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Dec 8, 2015 01:03
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nothing to seehere posted:My first thought was that his gums suddenly start bleeding from scurvy or similar.
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Dec 8, 2015 01:04
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Ensign Expendable posted:The idea actually isn't bad. Having an electric motor drive your vehicle gives you a really fine amount of control over how much power you want to put out. You kind of don't want to do this in a tank, in the middle of a war, while copper is an extremely rare strategic resource that you're running out of. I maintain turboelectric drive for ships is very cool and pretty good, but tanks don't benefit from fine subdivision and spin up their engines in times measured with smaller units than minutes. Even then it's heavy.
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Dec 8, 2015 01:17
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Deteriorata posted:Apparently there was some warning of the attack. A primitive radar station had been set up and spotted a huge blip, indicating a large number of incoming planes about 130 miles out. The lieutenant in charge thought it was a flight of incoming B-17s and told the operator not to worry about it. What's almost always forgotten about this incident is that the fighter direction system Lieutenant Tyler was a part of was so skeletal (it was still being put together, and Tyler's instructions for that night were basically to sit on his rear end by the phone with no guidance about what to do in a Real Emergency) that there was nobody for Tyler to actually report to even if he had known it was an incoming Japanese raid. To send out a warning, he would have had to cold call senior officers on a Sunday morning and hope they actually listened to him.
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Dec 8, 2015 01:38
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I can almost give those Swedes a pass since I was thinking this was the first time they'd ever bagged a lion, but then I remembered the Swedes hosed England up for a couple centuries.
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Dec 8, 2015 01:40
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Don't forget the T-34 which had many an issue when it was first being produced, but they were able to hammer out the problems while having a good armor layout. The Pz IV was similar, minus the angled armour. The Panther was supposed to replace it while providing a good "base" for future work, which obviously never worked out because of a flawed design decision. The T-50 would be a good comparison to the Panther. It was super duper compared to all other light tanks of the era, but really complicated and prone to hilarious failures like driving so fast that its tracks disintegrate. However, instead of stubbornly trying to push it through for years and years, it was cancelled in 1942 and replaced with the T-60 that could be made at any car plant.
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Dec 8, 2015 01:47
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FAUXTON posted:I can almost give those Swedes a pass since I was thinking this was the first time they'd ever bagged a lion, but then I remembered the Swedes hosed England up for a couple centuries. Like, the Vikings? That's holding a grudge.
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Dec 8, 2015 01:49
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:What's almost always forgotten about this incident is that the fighter direction system Lieutenant Tyler was a part of was so skeletal (it was still being put together, and Tyler's instructions for that night were basically to sit on his rear end by the phone with no guidance about what to do in a Real Emergency) that there was nobody for Tyler to actually report to even if he had known it was an incoming Japanese raid. To send out a warning, he would have had to cold call senior officers on a Sunday morning and hope they actually listened to him. Yeah, it was also a temporary experimental setup and nobody really knew what they were doing with that new radar stuff. The guys who spotted the blip did so only because the truck to pick them up was late. Their training shift was technically over but they kept running just because there was nothing else to do. Also, they had figured out the blip was big enough to be at least 50 planes - while only six B-17s that were due - but they thought it might be them since they didn't know how big of a blip a B-17 would make. They never passed the numbers estimate along, and thus the lieutenant had nothing to base his judgment on. Then their truck finally arrived and they headed back to their base, only to learn of the attack once there. Only then did they put two and two together and realize what they'd seen. So it's hard really to blame anybody, it's just unfortunate.
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Dec 8, 2015 02:00
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Deteriorata posted:Yeah, it was also a temporary experimental setup and nobody really knew what they were doing with that new radar stuff. The guys who spotted the blip did so only because the truck to pick them up was late. Their training shift was technically over but they kept running just because there was nothing else to do.
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Dec 8, 2015 02:17
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Like, the Vikings? That's holding a grudge. I meant that they bagged a particular lion passant guardant. then again it was the Normans who started that tradition so the joke falls apart
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Dec 8, 2015 02:34
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HEY GAL posted:scurvy makes sense, it was winter and i think she was Prussian or from somewhere horrible like that
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Dec 8, 2015 02:37
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Rockopolis posted:Did it say if it was an adult son or an infant? Eruption sounds like teething to me. rip early modern german, the stats were against you
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Dec 8, 2015 02:40
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HEY GAL posted:it was a child and he was like...six or something, i thought it was something about baby teeth vs adult teeth Maybe the kid was part volcano.
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Dec 8, 2015 02:41
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Maybe the kid was part volcano. Check your geologically stable privilege
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Dec 8, 2015 02:46
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Early tooth eruption is a thing that can happen, but it could be any number of things. Without any other information nutrition/infection is the most likely cause, but that's probably the assumption for most deaths in this period. The pre-antibiotic, pre-dentistry world had a lot of deaths due to dental abcesses.
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Dec 8, 2015 02:56
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sarmhan posted:Early tooth eruption is a thing that can happen, but it could be any number of things. Without any other information nutrition/infection is the most likely cause, but that's probably the assumption for most deaths in this period. The pre-antibiotic, pre-dentistry world had a lot of deaths due to dental abcesses. Best answer to any question of cause of death before the 20th century is "Infection of something else" or "Disease." If one doesn't get you, the other will.
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Dec 8, 2015 03:39
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Rockopolis posted:Did it say if it was an adult son or an infant? Eruption sounds like teething to me. To me it sounds like his teeth suddenly exploded out of his jaw at high velocity, killing him instantly.
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Dec 8, 2015 03:41
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it's not in Women in the Margins at all, where did I find this? Anyway, I got some details wrong. The woman is Maria Cordula Freiin von Pranckh, and her word for what she wrote is Gedenkhbuch, commemorative book. In addition to talking about her life, she recorded all her family members' exact places and times of birth, so she could do their signs (which she did). She's not Prussian, she's Carinthian. Her husband, Gerhardt Johann von Pranckh, was shot during the Little Northern War. He died in Pomerania and she had him embalmed the day after he died--she wasn't looking for him, she had been there all along, because most military families travel together. She was bringing him home. She made the trip with her daughter and her son; the boy (Ferdinand, because of course) was 33 weeks and one day old when all his teeth erupted at once and he died. Gerhardt Johann was buried in the chapel of his regiment, next to the three children that predeceased him. She was the godmother of 78 children in the regiment, and she listed all their names. She was very proud of this. edit: JaucheCharly, as soon as i mentioned where this woman is from, you are now hearing her accent in your head HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Dec 8, 2015 |
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Dec 8, 2015 03:57
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HEY GAL posted:She was the godmother of 78 children in the regiment, and she listed all their names. She was very proud of this. How much of this is respect and how much pragmatism (make the person most likely to have some money the kid's godmother)?
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Dec 8, 2015 04:03
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xthetenth posted:How much of this is respect and how much pragmatism (make the person most likely to have some money the kid's godmother)?
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Dec 8, 2015 04:06
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PittTheElder posted:What were the Soviets doing/omitting that was making their tanks so much lighter?    Taerkar posted:The M26 has more armor protection in general. The sides are about 50% thicker and the frontal aspect is mostly same or better. T___A fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Dec 8, 2015 |
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Dec 8, 2015 05:21
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