Ask Us About Military History: Remove Balls To Fire Blanks

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Winter Stormer: Oct 17, 2012

Tias posted:

Is that some kind of Warthog or a C-130 gun platform??

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130

# ? Mar 4, 2016 14:18

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# ? May 28, 2024 01:27

Phanatic: Mar 13, 2007; Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

chitoryu12 posted:

This talk about planes shooting each other down in cool ways reminds me, a Tucano T-27 armed with machine guns shot down a drug smuggler's plane

Yeah, I hope it was a drug smuggler's plane. There have been times it hasn't been:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Peru_shootdown

# ? Mar 4, 2016 15:51

Siivola: Dec 23, 2012

feedmegin posted:

Turboprops (and specifically Tucanos) have always been a thing for COIN, though. They can fly slower than jets which is handy when trying to shoot up guerrillas in jungles or whatever.

Sure, but they still catch me by surprise every time. With all this hoo-hah about ultramodern weapons systems and drones and future warriors, you can still get by just strapping a gun (or thirty :black101:

) in an old-school prop plane and flying it slowly over your enemies.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 16:51

spectralent: Oct 1, 2014; Me and the boys poppin' down to the shops

I'm surprised more aren't lost to AAA.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 16:52

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

BalloonFish posted:

Do you know what the deal was with Opel and Ford-Werke both being subsidiaries of American firms at this stage? Did the Nazis nationalise them during rearmament or seize them at the outbreak of the war?

Plenty of American firms with German subsidiaries had them keep operating independently during the war. Look up the history of Coca Cola GmbH and the invention of Fanta.

Also am I the only one here who doesn't think it's all that awesome that smugglers are being shot down over a load of drugs? It seems like there have to be reasonable ways to force them to land, intercept and escort with airforce assets, etc. Then there's all the issues of how the gently caress do you know it's a smuggler, and if your mandate is anti-drug (and you think that's something worth killing over) how do you know it's that and not a load of fake gucci or whatever.

edit:

Siivola posted:

Sure, but they still catch me by surprise every time. With all this hoo-hah about ultramodern weapons systems and drones and future warriors, you can still get by just strapping a gun (or thirty ) in an old-school prop plane and flying it slowly over your enemies.

Note that this only works in the most permissive of airspace. You don't want to do this if they have any kind of AAA that is more advanced than an AK. Basically it's only a good tool for countries to poor to afford more modern CAS to use blowing up whatever the local insurgents are.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 17:03

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

Cyrano4747 posted:

Also am I the only one here who doesn't think it's all that awesome that smugglers are being shot down over a load of drugs?

You are not.

Honestly, I didn't think the air controllers on that video sounded super stoked about how it ended either.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 17:32

JcDent: May 13, 2013; Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

You'd think fake gucci would come in bostloads that are less risky than crosd boarder flights

# ? Mar 4, 2016 17:37

Fangz: Jul 5, 2007; Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!

Cyrano4747 posted:

Plenty of American firms with German subsidiaries had them keep operating independently during the war. Look up the history of Coca Cola GmbH and the invention of Fanta.

Also am I the only one here who doesn't think it's all that awesome that smugglers are being shot down over a load of drugs? It seems like there have to be reasonable ways to force them to land, intercept and escort with airforce assets, etc. Then there's all the issues of how the gently caress do you know it's a smuggler, and if your mandate is anti-drug (and you think that's something worth killing over) how do you know it's that and not a load of fake gucci or whatever.

Apparently the Peruvians *weren't* authorised to shoot down planes from after this incident, until August last year. But maybe the new policy isn't being implemented anyway.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-3274517/Peru-announces-probe-AP-drug-plane-report.html

I don't pretend to know too much about the internal politics of Peru, I think you are overstating how harmless drug smuggling is to the Peruvian government and the stability and security of the region.

Fangz fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Mar 4, 2016

# ? Mar 4, 2016 17:44

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

Cyrano4747 posted:

God I hate that quote.

Or the one about shooting officers first because they have swords.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 18:00

Siivola: Dec 23, 2012

Cyrano4747 posted:

Note that this only works in the most permissive of airspace. You don't want to do this if they have any kind of AAA that is more advanced than an AK. Basically it's only a good tool for countries to poor to afford more modern CAS to use blowing up whatever the local insurgents are.

It's good enough that the US actually considered having some modern planes developed to do exactly that. And then the program died because that's what happens when the US military considers buying new toys.

I think it's a clever direction to take aircraft design, honestly. I'd imagine that for many countries fighting in ongoing conflicts, the ideal plane is cheap to fly and easy to keep in shape, instead of being fast enough to outrun the newest Russian SAM.

Edit: Now I'm actually curious. What's the air war in Syria like?

Edit: Oh my gosh look at this thing!

Siivola fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Mar 4, 2016

# ? Mar 4, 2016 18:11

bewbies: Sep 23, 2003; Fun Shoe

The internet seems kind of obsessed with the idea that the US should buy a boatload of cheap prop planes and sending them off en masse to CAS everything. It is a terrible idea: it isn't filling any major capability gap and the system would be horribly vulnerable to anyone higher than "bushman" or "low rent drug dealer" on the threat scale.

If you need low altitude close contact with troops in contact, in a permissible environment, rotary wing. If you need extended loiter times in that environment, drones or gunships, or the big bomb trucks. If you need to drop precision HE in a semi-contested environment, F-16/18. If you need to penetrate a semi-modern or modern IADS to perform CAS or AI, that's what the F-35 is for. If you need close or deep fires against a peer opponent with a high end IADS over extended ranges....you're out of luck, because we divested most of our artillery and ballistic missile capabilities. :/ (but a WWII vintage gun based design won't help much in that scenario either)

bewbies fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Mar 4, 2016

# ? Mar 4, 2016 18:43

Spacewolf: May 19, 2014

It's the same mindset that birthed That Guy.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 18:45

Trin Tragula: Apr 22, 2005

100 Years Ago

Douaumont village, in the shadow of the fort, is finally German. Say, wasn't it the French who were supposed to waste thousands of lives while attacking objectives of dubious value? Elsewhere: the German government considers restarting unrestricted submarine warfare; the politician's fallacy begins to grip the French government; a quiet day for Grigoris Balakian; Clifford Wells does some drilling; and Corporal Flora Sandes discovers that stores are for storing, not for issuing.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 19:39

Goatse James Bond: Mar 28, 2010; If you see me posting please remind me that I have Charlie Work in the reports forum to do instead

BalloonFish posted:

Do you know what the deal was with Opel and Ford-Werke both being subsidiaries of American firms at this stage? Did the Nazis nationalise them during rearmament or seize them at the outbreak of the war?

Actually, the same question goes for Vauxhall/Bedford in the UK, which was actively developing and building tanks and trucks for the war before the USA joined the fray, although I guess that sort of thing came under the 'we'll give you all the support we can get away with without actually being drawn into a European war' pre-1941 phase.

I know that GM's European arms were much more independent from Detroit (and each other) than they were post-war but your post made me think.

Has the semi-mythical time the minature armoured train on a tourist railway in Kent shot down a Bf109 come up? Lots of local legends about that - the most common is that the German pilot didn't realise he was strafing a one-third scale train, misjudged his altitude and crashed. Unfortunately the only official record is that the train crew claimed a half-kill for a Bf109 in tandem with a Hurricane pilot.

The legend probably gets confused with the verified time an unarmoured (and un-armed) train downed an Fw190 in Kent later in the war- the plane straffed a local freight service on its way to Lydd and shot off the steam dome, releasing a huge cloud of steam without blowing up the boiler. The pilot, blinded by flying through the cloud at the bottom of his pass, was disorientated at the crucial moment, crash-landed in a nearby field, survived and was taken prisoner. Apparently the loco carried an Iron Cross kill-marker on the side of the cab for the rest of its service.

Too bad they didn't get that train refurbished, that is an amazing story.

Poor pilot.
:v:

: So how'd you get captured?
:saddowns:

# ? Mar 4, 2016 21:03

KYOON GRIFFEY JR: Apr 12, 2010; Runner-up, TRP Sack Race 2021/22

Chilling in Canada for the war seems better than a lot of the alternatives.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 23:08

Baron Porkface: Jan 22, 2007

So I know what that Hadrians Wall and the Great Wall of China weren't actually designed to stop people by mass, but i forgot what their actual strategic purpose was?

# ? Mar 4, 2016 23:24

bewbies: Sep 23, 2003; Fun Shoe

Baron Porkface posted:

So I know what that Hadrians Wall and the Great Wall of China weren't actually designed to stop people by mass, but i forgot what their actual strategic purpose was?

They were essentially Trumpian border controls, among other things. Like any fortification, it isn't meant to be impregnable, only to slow down the affected party such that you have some additional time and space to do things about it. The GWOC in particular, and a lot of fortifications all over Europe, had a lot of ancillary effects, like being a trade routes and nodes unto themselves.

# ? Mar 4, 2016 23:30

Hogge Wild: Aug 21, 2012; by FactsAreUseless; Pillbug

Jobbo_Fett posted:

Lend-Lease: 400,000+ in trucks, transporters, tanks, prime movers, etc.

Wikipedia states that the 400,000+ number was for trucks and cars alone. Tanks are counted seperately.

Domestic: The only numbers given in my book, without going through all the individual entries, states

"During the second Five Year Plan, Soviet factories produced some 200,000 vehicles."

~~Big Fat~~ Edit

The only concrete numbers I can find in the individual entries, put together, top off at 100,862 vehicles (cars and trucks). This isn't strictly WW2 only numbers, as at least one entry mentions that the number is from 1953.

GAZ-64/67/67B: 63,489 (Produced from 1941 to 1953)
GAZ-AA, GAZ-AAA: 37,373 (Produced from 1932 to 1943)

Edit Deuce:

Wikipedia numbers:
GAZ-64/67/67B: 93,489
GAZ-AA/GAZ-AAA: 985,000+
ZIS-5: 1+ million

Lol, there's no entry for the most important Russian truck of the war... the ZiS-5 truck.

Thanks. So USA produced more cars than all the rest put together.

# ? Mar 5, 2016 02:17

sullat: Jan 9, 2012

Hogge Wild posted:

Thanks. So USA produced more cars than all the rest put together.

Airplanes, rifles, boots, aircraft carriers, nuclear bombs, locomotives, posters, artillery shells, blockbuster videos...

# ? Mar 5, 2016 02:36

Hogge Wild: Aug 21, 2012; by FactsAreUseless; Pillbug

sullat posted:

Airplanes, rifles, boots, aircraft carriers, nuclear bombs, locomotives, posters, artillery shells, blockbuster videos...

Ha, I was thinking about asking what the USA didn't produce more than all the other countries put together.

# ? Mar 5, 2016 02:41

sullat: Jan 9, 2012

Hogge Wild posted:

Ha, I was thinking about asking what the USA didn't produce more than all the other countries put together.

Yeah, me too. Probably they were out produced in niche stuff like folded-steel Hanzo swords, canisters of moustache wax, zyklon B and antifreeze-based vodka.

# ? Mar 5, 2016 02:51

xthetenth: Dec 30, 2012; Mario wasn't sure if this Jeb guy was a good influence on Yoshi.

Pretty sure they got outproduced heavily in corpses.

# ? Mar 5, 2016 02:54

Hogge Wild: Aug 21, 2012; by FactsAreUseless; Pillbug

bewbies posted:

The internet seems kind of obsessed with the idea that the US should buy a boatload of cheap prop planes and sending them off en masse to CAS everything. It is a terrible idea: it isn't filling any major capability gap and the system would be horribly vulnerable to anyone higher than "bushman" or "low rent drug dealer" on the threat scale.

If you need low altitude close contact with troops in contact, in a permissible environment, rotary wing. If you need extended loiter times in that environment, drones or gunships, or the big bomb trucks. If you need to drop precision HE in a semi-contested environment, F-16/18. If you need to penetrate a semi-modern or modern IADS to perform CAS or AI, that's what the F-35 is for. If you need close or deep fires against a peer opponent with a high end IADS over extended ranges....you're out of luck, because we divested most of our artillery and ballistic missile capabilities. :/ (but a WWII vintage gun based design won't help much in that scenario either)

Can the F-35 fly already?

# ? Mar 5, 2016 03:34

Ensign Expendable: Nov 11, 2008; Lager beer is proof that god loves us; Pillbug

Hogge Wild posted:

Ha, I was thinking about asking what the USA didn't produce more than all the other countries put together.

Heavy tanks.

# ? Mar 5, 2016 03:50

Jobbo_Fett: Mar 7, 2014; Slava Ukrayini; Clapping Larry

Hogge Wild posted:

Ha, I was thinking about asking what the USA didn't produce more than all the other countries put together.

Superweapons :smuggo:

# ? Mar 5, 2016 03:54

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

^^^^ if you narrow it to effective superweapons that actually had an impact on the war, we arguably have way more than anyone else at two

We didn't produce nearly as many rifles as other countries, mostly because we weren't arming as huge an army. M1 Garand had something like 3.5 million made during the war , probably a third again that in carbines. 1903s were used in a front line capacity for a couple of years, but not in huge numbers. Call it a million made after the 30s just for the sake of argumetn, although I have no idea of the real numbers.

The Germans made 14 million K98ks. The Soviets made something like 35 million, although that's all production. On the other hand the vast majority of Mosins were made for WW2. Call it 20 million to be conservative.

# ? Mar 5, 2016 03:54

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

loving lol looking at wikipedia we also got waaaaaaay outproduced in subs. 245 vs. more than 1000 for Germany.

# ? Mar 5, 2016 03:57

Jobbo_Fett: Mar 7, 2014; Slava Ukrayini; Clapping Larry

Cyrano4747 posted:

loving lol looking at wikipedia we also got waaaaaaay outproduced in subs. 245 vs. more than 1000 for Germany.

Germany did really love their subs. Its surprising to see U-boats with numbers like U-1105, and then it sinks in that they built so drat many.

# ? Mar 5, 2016 04:02

Argas: Jan 13, 2008; SRW Fanatic

Cyrano4747 posted:

loving lol looking at wikipedia we also got waaaaaaay outproduced in subs. 245 vs. more than 1000 for Germany.

Yeah but that's because building more surface ships wouldn't have done any good. Not that the uboats won the war for Germany. You might even say they were subpar.

# ? Mar 5, 2016 04:04

Hogge Wild: Aug 21, 2012; by FactsAreUseless; Pillbug

ayyyyy

# ? Mar 5, 2016 04:05

xthetenth: Dec 30, 2012; Mario wasn't sure if this Jeb guy was a good influence on Yoshi.

Jobbo_Fett posted:

Superweapons

I once got asked in full earnestness "If the US had superweapons like you say they did, how come they didn't build them and end the war with them?"

# ? Mar 5, 2016 04:28

Jobbo_Fett: Mar 7, 2014; Slava Ukrayini; Clapping Larry

xthetenth posted:

I once got asked in full earnestness "If the US had superweapons like you say they did, how come they didn't build them and end the war with them?"

# ? Mar 5, 2016 04:35

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Jobbo_Fett posted:

It's not a superweapon if it works and can be mass produced. Then it's just a weapon.

# ? Mar 5, 2016 05:12

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Cythereal posted:

It's not a superweapon if it works and can be mass produced. Then it's just a weapon.

not if one side can make it and the other one can't: greek fire, machine guns on fighter planes that fire through the propellers without hitting them, etc

# ? Mar 5, 2016 05:24

Ensign Expendable: Nov 11, 2008; Lager beer is proof that god loves us; Pillbug

HEY GAL posted:

not if one side can make it and the other one can't: greek fire, machine guns on fighter planes that fire through the propellers without hitting them, etc

...medium tanks that can drive more than 150 km without breaking down...

# ? Mar 5, 2016 05:27

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Ensign Expendable posted:

...medium tanks that can drive more than 150 km without breaking down...

This Machine Kills Wehraboos

# ? Mar 5, 2016 05:30

gohuskies: Oct 23, 2010; I spend a lot of time making posts to justify why I'm not a self centered shithead that just wants to act like COVID isn't a thing.

Ensign Expendable posted:

...medium tanks that can drive more than 150 km without breaking down...

...the B-29...

# ? Mar 5, 2016 05:42

Ensign Expendable: Nov 11, 2008; Lager beer is proof that god loves us; Pillbug

HEY GAL posted:

This Machine Kills Wehraboos

Is that an early modern selfie stick in your avatar?

# ? Mar 5, 2016 06:12

Jobbo_Fett: Mar 7, 2014; Slava Ukrayini; Clapping Larry

Ensign Expendable posted:

...medium tanks that can drive more than 150 km without breaking down...

The T-34 couldn't manage that either :v:

# ? Mar 5, 2016 06:15

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# ? May 28, 2024 01:27

Ensign Expendable: Nov 11, 2008; Lager beer is proof that god loves us; Pillbug

Sure it could? Even in the earliest tanks the warranty period was 100 engine-hours.

# ? Mar 5, 2016 07:15

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