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Trin Tragula posted:Is it okay if I believe that this required some kind of elaborate vaudeville scheme involving a carefully-folded piece of paper and a string of incredibly unconvincing excuses? "No, the manager won't give me the special government rate for ten-course formal banquets unless he has the signature of such a powerful and renowned person as yourself, folded in the traditional style of his ancestors..." As of this moment, it is required. I love the mental image. 
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Jan 23, 2016 17:57
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HEY GAL posted:there's no general early modern history thread any more so i will put this here: We do have professed gallants today, they wear fedoras and say "m'lady."
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Jan 23, 2016 18:20
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Nebakenezzer posted:We do have professed gallants today, they wear fedoras and say "m'lady."
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Jan 23, 2016 18:30
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SeanBeansShako posted:
I keep forgetting that normal, well adjusted people don't like that kind of writing. It's kind of a guilty pleasure for me; sorry I brought it up.
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Jan 23, 2016 18:41
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Grand Prize Winner posted:I keep forgetting that normal, well adjusted people don't like that kind of writing. It's kind of a guilty pleasure for me; sorry I brought it up. It's fine, I'm not going to judge now reguarding guilty pleasures. Look at my avatar. That show isn't very good. The books are nice though.
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Jan 23, 2016 18:47
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ArchangeI posted:Dude has a major hateboner for the concept of aircraft carriers. According to him the Chinese DF-21 is absolutely going to sweep the seas clean of all major combat vessels about half an hour into a conflict. Anyone not building shittons of subs is just going to lose, period, no questions asked. I've seen some people ITT and the TFR Airpower thread confirmed that the USN is actually fairly worried about those kinds of systems. And as far as aircraft carriers go, it's worth noting that for the past 60+ years, most aircraft carriers have operated in a very permissive environment and modern diesel subs are really scary. The USN leased a Swedish sub for exercises and apparently it could operate fairly well against a carrier group.
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Jan 23, 2016 19:09
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Trin Tragula posted:PS: Have a picture of two women in puttees 
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Jan 23, 2016 19:13
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While we're on the subject of the War Nerd, does anyone know if his views on asymmetric warfare are valid at all? I seem to recall him claiming that this was going to be (or has already become) a huge problem for Western countries, since you basically can't beat an insurrection or resistance movement by using only conventional military means (unless you kill literally everybody). Supposedly various higher-ups are starting to collectively poo poo themselves as they've come to realize that a bunch of determined dudes with access to IED:s and RPGs are capable of seriously loving up their multi-million dollar tech toys. The concept of low-tech versus high-tech is very interesting to me, but I really haven't read much at all on the subject (yet).
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Jan 23, 2016 19:22
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Kemper Boyd posted:I've seen some people ITT and the TFR Airpower thread confirmed that the USN is actually fairly worried about those kinds of systems. And they absolutely should take them seriously. Sitting around going "Pffffft, that's never gonna work" is a great way to lose a war. But it is equally stupid to just assume that an untested weapon system is going to work exactly how its designers say it will, while dismissing any defenses the target may have as useless. Hitting a moving target with a ballistic missile isn't exactly trivial, even if it is as big as a carrier. Hitting a target maneuvering at maximum speed while engaging with defenses is pretty drat hard.
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Jan 23, 2016 19:38
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Pffffft, controlling the speed of ships by having a fire in the middle that somehow propels them? Not going to work!
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Jan 23, 2016 19:53
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HEY GAL posted:edit: italian.png, bustocco is one of the purple ones, i do not know why the map doesn't include Swiss Italian Wouldn't that be the spot marked as Ticinese?
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Jan 23, 2016 19:54
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ArchangeI posted:Dude has a major hateboner for the concept of aircraft carriers. According to him the Chinese DF-21 is absolutely going to sweep the seas clean of all major combat vessels about half an hour into a conflict. Anyone not building shittons of subs is just going to lose, period, no questions asked. He is one of the biggest promoters of the ol' Millenium Challenge storym
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Jan 23, 2016 19:57
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Taerkar posted:He is one of the biggest promoters of the ol' Millenium Challenge storym What do you wanna bet he plays Zerg
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Jan 23, 2016 19:58
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Kemper Boyd posted:I've seen some people ITT and the TFR Airpower thread confirmed that the USN is actually fairly worried about those kinds of systems. Regarding your last point: that should only have served as a reaffirmation of what the US Navy had already learned by itself in the 1950s and 60s. Seeing as they operated the most modern diesel subs around during those years and all that Jazz. Also, NATO exercises in the North Atlantic regularly featured diesel fleet boats (mostly UK and NL ones IIRC) against all kinds of surface groups, standing in for the epitomous Soviet threat. The practical knowledge might have subsided a bit over the last 25 years, but as an organization I'd say the USN has been well aware of the potential dangers of diesel submarines for a long time (including WWII mind you). What's even scarier than modern diesel subs though are modern nuclear subs, which brings us neatly to the peer conflict-thinking of your earlier point. I don't want to lecture, but conceptually, the danger of shore-based anti-ship ballistic missiles compared to regular 'ol ones (or groups of aircraft) is a scaling problem kind of in the same vein as that of diesel vs. nuclear subs. Admittedly greater in scope, but you've got the same problems in the compression of reaction time, extension of lethal range, and reduced detectability. However, there's always force composition/doctrinal changes to counter these kinds of new threats with the existing systems that you own: missiles get increased range - operate further away from them and introduce your own stand-off weapons; subs are getting faster and longer-ranged - do the same with your surface ships (though the nuclear navy was kind of a failure), etc. Also, the same technologies that made the threats possible, might also contain the very countermeasures to negate them: nuclear subs - nuclear depth charges out the wazoo; missiles - interceptors; faster, higher-flying missiles - you do the math. It's probably the doctrinal changes that are the most interesting though IMO because they can shape national policies by osmosis. There was a lot of discussion over the last couple of years of the US avoiding direct confrontation in a notional East Asia scenario, and going for something called 'distant blockade' - pretty much a return of a fleet-in-being strategy of economic strangulation against ~the potential enemy~. Coming out of the open with an option like that can really influence the way other nations look at you. e: I forgot, the big problem for over-the-horizon weapons isn't their range, payload, or even terminal guidance, it's long-range target acquisition. Have a 21st century conflict between large powers and chances are you can't go into space for years because taking out each other's satellites gave us Kessler syndrome. Koesj fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Jan 23, 2016 |
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Jan 23, 2016 20:06
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my dad posted:Hm... Yes, the citation, yes, obviously. Not directed at you but in the general direction of whatever you were replying to: Friendly reminder that authoritarianism, even nationalistic authoritarianism, is not automatically fascism and they are most certainly not synonyms. Anyone who wants to know the difference should invest $2 in a used copy of this book.
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Jan 23, 2016 20:13
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Taerkar posted:He is one of the biggest promoters of the ol' Millenium Challenge storym Yep. Although in fairness, I'd be worried about boats under a hundred feet that could carry a heavy ASM, a full radar suite to target it, cloak at will, and interface with an uninterceptable lightspeed motorcycle courier service with a perfect reliability rate, and be had for cheap enough a tinpot dictator could afford a flotilla.
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Jan 23, 2016 20:28
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Comrade Koba posted:While we're on the subject of the War Nerd, does anyone know if his views on asymmetric warfare are valid at all? I seem to recall him claiming that this was going to be (or has already become) a huge problem for Western countries, since you basically can't beat an insurrection or resistance movement by using only conventional military means (unless you kill literally everybody). Supposedly various higher-ups are starting to collectively poo poo themselves as they've come to realize that a bunch of determined dudes with access to IED:s and RPGs are capable of seriously loving up their multi-million dollar tech toys. He might accidentally say correct things but in general you should assume he's wrong about everything. Re. the "higher ups making GBS threads themselves" this has been the case (in the US at least) since the early days of Vietnam. Ironically enough we've skewed our capabilities so far to the COIN realm that we're facing serious capability gaps in conventional conflict.
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Jan 23, 2016 20:32
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JcDent posted:He's a douche. Not a very accurate description of the war, the Paraguayans lost almost every battle, except those against undefended Argentine towns. Their cavalry was by far the best in the war, at least until they ate their horses. There probably were slaves on the Brazilian side but I think? they were freed on condition of their employment as soldiers. In any case their lot would have been little worse than that of the "free" soldiers in the war, prisoners were routinely pressed back into service on the line by their captors. The conditions faced by the soldiers in this were horrific. Imagine Napoleonic armies, but instead of operating in a densely populated country with roads and towns to quarter in and supplies to forage, they're in a multi-hundred kilometer wide uninhabited swamp full of reeds so sharp they can slit your throat. I like the war nerd though. He's no more accurate than your average pop-historian but he covers otherwise neglected subjects to which his average reader has no other exposure. Even if he does have GBS style.
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Jan 23, 2016 20:37
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Comrade Koba posted:While we're on the subject of the War Nerd, does anyone know if his views on asymmetric warfare are valid at all? I seem to recall him claiming that this was going to be (or has already become) a huge problem for Western countries, since you basically can't beat an insurrection or resistance movement by using only conventional military means (unless you kill literally everybody). Supposedly various higher-ups are starting to collectively poo poo themselves as they've come to realize that a bunch of determined dudes with access to IED:s and RPGs are capable of seriously loving up their multi-million dollar tech toys. Thanks to "Voltaire's Bastards" I've been thinking about this a bit. I'm not sure if it has been written down by Sun Tzu or Macnivelli, but a basic rule of warfare is "don't fight your enemy where they want to be fought." You could apply this to, say, World War 1, where the Kaiser trying to challenge the Royal Navy on the surface was the height of stupidity, because that's where the Royal Navy was the strongest. But the world was taught the same lesson during the first Iraq war**, when Iraq tried to fight a conventional war with almost the whole world and lost. The takeaway here is that the United States in particular was immensely strong in the conventional warfare department, and if you were thinking of assembling armored divisions and air forces to fight them, the advantage the USA has is overwhelming, both thanks to training, material superiority, and technological expertise. So, if you are going to fight them, unconventional tactics are the way to go. This obviously limits your ambitions somewhat, (you are never going to secure Iowa via asymmetric warfare) but it does give you options for fighting on your own terms, or at least avoiding the ones that your enemy really really badly wants you to fight on. As for the tech toys, that's another constant in warfare - there's an economic angle to fighting. You can spend enormous amounts of money on units, and it makes economic sense right up to the point some cheap economic change undermines the cost/effectiveness ratio. Armored knights eventually become nonviable in the face of muskets and crossbows. Battleships become a cost loser once aircraft and guided munitions render them too vulnerable. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong here, but in the 1960s some people in the West thought tanks were on their way out, simply because conventional armor was increasingly ineffective. (Composite armor reversed this trend, but as a rule it is easier to use science to break poo poo rather than it is to use science to protect yourself against the science of breaking poo poo.) The economics of a 5 million dollar tank vs the $20,000 RPG are actually not so bad once you begin thinking about 100 million dollar stealth aircraft and aircraft carriers that cost billions. I've also been thinking about this thanks to this thread: the cost / benifit ratio gets more risky the more expensive the item in question. Tanks have to be mass producible, so they have an incentive to consider economics, and thus are durable in the face of challenges. Battleships, on the other hand, were turbofucked once these trends asserted themselves. Not only did they cost a king's ransom to construct, they cost a poo poo-ton to operate, and needed sometimes thousands of sailors to man them. When one guided munition can sink a battleship, (Like with the Roma, nobody is even going to consider building them anymore.* *Except the Soviets, and that was after they had perfected many, many technologies to protect against guided munitions.  **Naturally John Ralston Saul considers the First Iraq war a total failure for the West (he was writing in 1991-1992.) First, because we created vast stockpiles of material before fighting. Second, "because the Iraqi army was left intact." Third, because the Patriot missile didn't work right. Fourth, the West by following the "vast stockpile strategy" allowed the Iraqis to sabotage a shitload of oil infrastructure, and that was avoidable by --------. The fact that the enemy allowed the vast stockpile strategy to happen was not evidence of incompetence, but rather evidence that such a massive mobilization was unnecessary. Fifth, Saddam Hussein was left in power. Sixth, the air war did nothing to advance military objectives, as the Iraqi army was unwilling to fight anyway, because they surrendered in mass once the ground war started. In retrospect, it is hilarious to read at people complaining about fuckups in the first Iraq war
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Jan 23, 2016 20:57
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Squalid posted:Ask Us About Military History: their cavalry was by far the best in the war, at least until they ate their horses.
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Jan 23, 2016 20:59
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Next thread title, hands down. That happened quite a lot.
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Jan 23, 2016 21:07
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Koesj posted:Regarding your last point: that should only have served as a reaffirmation of what the US Navy had already learned by itself in the 1950s and 60s. Seeing as they operated the most modern diesel subs around during those years and all that Jazz. Also, NATO exercises in the North Atlantic regularly featured diesel fleet boats (mostly UK and NL ones IIRC) against all kinds of surface groups, standing in for the epitomous Soviet threat. As far as I understand it, the modern diesel subs are scary as hell because they can operate submerged for long periods of time, which boats in the sixties couldn't do, and unlike nuclear boats, they can be made almost silent since nuclear boats can't turn off their reactors. To make a point, the Swedish sub that the USN leased got five carrier kills out of six in exercises.
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Jan 23, 2016 21:08
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SeanBeansShako posted:Next thread title, hands down.
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Jan 23, 2016 21:11
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Kemper Boyd posted:As far as I understand it, the modern diesel subs are scary as hell because they can operate submerged for long periods of time, which boats in the sixties couldn't do, and unlike nuclear boats, they can be made almost silent since nuclear boats can't turn off their reactors. To make a point, the Swedish sub that the USN leased got five carrier kills out of six in exercises. Modern SSKs also (like the HSwMS Gotland you mentioned) also have air-independent propulsion (AIP). They don't have the range or endurance of nuke boats so they aren't 'hang out off the coast ready to launch missiles' kind of existential national threat. But they can be quiet as a tomb in their op-areas which makes them a real hassle for anyone who's putting their ships into that op-area.
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Jan 23, 2016 21:16
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I imagine railguns are going to give some scary options to future subs. Surface, fire off a shot at something miles and miles away, dive to hide and use the ocean to deal with excess heat.
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Jan 23, 2016 21:16
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Yeah, but they'd be hell to deal with the salt water problem compared to a surface-dwelling vessel.
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Jan 23, 2016 21:21
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Kemper Boyd posted:As far as I understand it, the modern diesel subs are scary as hell because they can operate submerged for long periods of time, which boats in the sixties couldn't do, and unlike nuclear boats, they can be made almost silent since nuclear boats can't turn off their reactors. To make a point, the Swedish sub that the USN leased got five carrier kills out of six in exercises. On the other hand modern diesels still have most of the drawbacks that drew nations to nuclear in the first place, namely how long they can stay at sea. Half of the advantage of a nuke is that since they can have such long cruises they can show up at the damnedest places. Having nukes scattered liberally around the ocean is a pretty good way to make a peer nation uncertain that they won't get second struck in a nuclear exchange, for example. I think in this day diesels are more of a good option for countries to deny absolute control of waters near-ish base to enemy aircraft carriers. It's a strategy that would work great for Sweden and probably pretty well for N. Korea (if they could get boats made in this century) or China, but I don't really see it being a great option for a country like the US.
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Jan 23, 2016 21:37
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Nuclear submarines serving as carrier vessels for diesel submarines. Now where's my navy contract? 
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Jan 23, 2016 21:42
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Maybe you can figure out some way to refuel them at sea. I guess that's what sub tenders are for.
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Jan 23, 2016 21:44
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my dad posted:Nuclear submarines serving as carrier vessels for diesel submarines. Now where's my navy contract? Boomers toting AShIRBMs  .
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Jan 23, 2016 21:45
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xthetenth posted:Boomers toting AShIRBMs Enter the DF 420, the world's first ASIRBM
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Jan 23, 2016 22:05
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Hogge Wild posted:he writes in an edgy style that many nerds like, i read some of his articles that some goon linked and iirc he only wrote about modern wars and ww2 I do rather suspect he's an intentional gimmick (in addition to definitely being a pen name), but okay, fair enough. Is there some sort of semi-collated list of Good History Blogs Etc lying around the forums that I haven't run across yet? Maybe in PYF or something?
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Jan 23, 2016 22:59
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do you know german? http://www.30jaehrigerkrieg.de/
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Jan 23, 2016 23:03
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HEY GAL posted:do you know german? http://www.30jaehrigerkrieg.de/ quote:Schmer: The bodyfat of delinquents [poor sinner's fat] was used by the hangman for medical purposes. Your guys were a very practical people, it seems. 
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Jan 23, 2016 23:22
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Comrade Koba posted:While we're on the subject of the War Nerd, does anyone know if his views on asymmetric warfare are valid at all? I seem to recall him claiming that this was going to be (or has already become) a huge problem for Western countries, since you basically can't beat an insurrection or resistance movement by using only conventional military means (unless you kill literally everybody). Supposedly various higher-ups are starting to collectively poo poo themselves as they've come to realize that a bunch of determined dudes with access to IED:s and RPGs are capable of seriously loving up their multi-million dollar tech toys. In my opinion western nations have adapted largely by changing political and economic tactics. Neoliberalism has obviated the need for governments to take and hold territory, and Capital has freed itself from dependence on any particular state to defend its interests. Nationalism makes acquiring new land and people a headache even for the conqueror, who really wants more minorities in their country anyway? Asymmetrical warfare is as much an opportunity for the modern nation as it is a threat, see for example how America used the Contras against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, or how Iran helped make the American occupation of Iraq unsustainable. If you feel you just have to destroy some government or organization militarily, western governments have developed a simple formula. Break it quickly with conventional power, install friendly natives into a transitional government, and recruit a native army to fight the inevitable resistance. Sometimes this works really well, for example the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat instigated by the United States was a huge success, and as a bonus the guy we installed promptly exterminated tens of thousands of "communists" without America even needing to ask! Even if your local patsies are too corrupt, cruel, or out-of-touch to take over from the get-go, you don't have to resort to a lengthy Afghanistan style occupation. Instead consider purchasing a contingent of "peacekeepers" from some small impoverished nations. Somalia is a great example of this tactic, where the utterly useless Federal government is protected by more than 20,000 African Union peacekeepers. These men deserve just about all the credit for driving Al Shabab from Mogadishu through years of bloody urban combat. Putting them there was a bargain too, excluding bonus military aid participating states received for joining, America only spent $81 million on the mission in 2007, and Europe probably spent half that much. It's bargain for a deployment of it's size whichever way you slice it. That insurgency is already 10 years old and has no sign of ending, but most Americans are completely unaware of our role in the conflict. It might not even matter if we can't "win," because we can just keep the war going forever, so at least the Somal-uh, er, Radical Islamists, yes that'll do, the Muslim extremists can't win either. Squalid fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Jan 24, 2016 |
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Jan 23, 2016 23:24
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Perestroika posted:Your guys were a very practical people, it seems. http://www.amazon.com/Mummies-Cannibals-Vampires-Renaissance-Victorians/dp/0415674174
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Jan 23, 2016 23:27
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Squalid posted:Even if your local patsies are too corrupt, cruel, or out-of-touch to take over from the get-go, you don't have to resort to a lengthy Afghanistan style occupation. Instead consider purchasing a contingent of "peacekeepers" from some small impoverished nations. Somalia is a great example of this tactic, where the utterly useless Federal government is protected by more than 20,000 African Union peacekeepers. These men deserve just about all the credit for driving Al Shabab from Mogadishu through years of bloody urban combat. Putting them there was a bargain too, excluding bonus military aid participating states received for joining, America only spent $81 on the mission in 2007, and Europe probably spent half that much. It's bargain for a deployment of it's size whichever way you slice it. See, I thought the African Union was doing this on their own because the west just gave up and didn't give a poo poo, and they (the African Union) was doing a better job of it.
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Jan 23, 2016 23:45
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Kemper Boyd posted:As far as I understand it, the modern diesel subs are scary as hell because they can operate submerged for long periods of time, which boats in the sixties couldn't do, and unlike nuclear boats, they can be made almost silent since nuclear boats can't turn off their reactors. To make a point, the Swedish sub that the USN leased got five carrier kills out of six in exercises. How many times do you have to torpedo an American carrier to sink it? Those things are ludicrously huge.
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Jan 24, 2016 00:16
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The Lone Badger posted:How many times do you have to torpedo an American carrier to sink it? Those things are ludicrously huge. One, if you hide the warhead in a crate of sex toys and leave it near the dock.
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Jan 24, 2016 00:19
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Nebakenezzer posted:See, I thought the African Union was doing this on their own because the west just gave up and didn't give a poo poo, and they (the African Union) was doing a better job of it. lol
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Jan 24, 2016 00:27
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