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Yeah the US is really going to regret it when those Mexican tank divisions start pushing up through Texas in 2020.
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Mar 26, 2016 18:15
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you know that scenario hasn't really been looked at in depth
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Mar 26, 2016 18:23
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bewbies posted:it is actually because of the cluster munitions ban. it is still a really important capability, and one that cannot be backfilled for at least a decade Oh. I misunderstood and thought that it was a causative thing. Yikes.
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Mar 26, 2016 18:25
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Fangz posted:Yeah the US is really going to regret it when those Mexican tank divisions start pushing up through Texas in 2020. Does seem like pretty good tank country .
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Mar 26, 2016 18:54
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Fangz posted:Yeah the US is really going to regret it when those Mexican tank divisions start pushing up through Texas in 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuwtNDkHch0
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Mar 26, 2016 20:00
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Siivola posted:That's fascinating stuff. Is there a good book on modern-day mercenaries you could recommend? Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Jeremy Scahill (although the title is misleading, Blackwater was tiny at its height, for really big news you want to look at Securitas, the company with three red dots as its logo. Those dudes are the largest single employer in the world) My favorite is Big Boy Rules, Steve Fainaru, written as a result of the author actually hanging out with mercenaries. I think it's that book where I learned that every other mercenary company in Iraq hated Blackwater. The book is tremendously entertaining, and it's the kind of book I'd want to write if the people I study weren't all dead and un-hangout-able I have not read Sean McFate, The Modern Mercenary, nor have I read Master of War, Suzanne Simons. all out of date now, of course HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Mar 26, 2016 |
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Mar 26, 2016 20:19
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Can someone recommend a book about French interwar politics? Maybe one about Poland as well?
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Mar 26, 2016 20:34
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Splitting the eras typically under discussion, could someone please recommend good books about the American Revolution?
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Mar 26, 2016 20:55
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I can't recommend a book off the top of my head but if you're after an overview the Revolutions Podcast has a good American Revolution segment.
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Mar 26, 2016 21:00
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I can recommend a book about the First World War! I can even recommend two! 1915 will be released in two days. 100 Years Ago Today is irony day among the French generals. Our man Joffre is, not unreasonably, a little concerned about the security of his own position should Petain do too well out of being in command at Verdun; so he promotes the man to command Central Army Group. As a reward. Of course. In his place is installed one General Robert Nivelle. Tee hee. It'll be quite a few months yet before this all plays out, but spoilers: it turns out that General Joffre has just been too clever for his own good. In other news: General Tighe departs Africa for a dull desk job; in the early hours of the morning Grigoris Balakian finds somewhere to sleep; Edward Mousley changes his clothes; Flora Sandes has acquired a massive job lot of English uniforms for her regiment; idiot son of a Montreal millionaire Clifford Wells is in quarantine thanks to someone else's idiot batman; and Bernard Adams freely admits just how much faith he places in his sergeants.
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Mar 26, 2016 21:32
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Zorak of Michigan posted:Splitting the eras typically under discussion, could someone please recommend good books about the American Revolution? I'm reading The Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff right now. It's part of the Oxford History of the United States. Its very interesting so far, especially as somebody who hasn't read a thing about the revolution since 9th grade, although it's occasionally a bit dry.
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Mar 26, 2016 21:59
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HEY GAL posted:(although the title is misleading, Blackwater was tiny at its height, for really big news you want to look at Securitas, the company with three red dots as its logo. Those dudes are the largest single employer in the world) You mean largest security firm, right? The largest single employers in the world are the US Department of Defense and the People's Liberation Army.
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Mar 27, 2016 01:16
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Chamale posted:You mean largest security firm, right? The largest single employers in the world are the US Department of Defense and the People's Liberation Army. Also the NHS
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Mar 27, 2016 01:19
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Chamale posted:You mean largest security firm, right? The largest single employers in the world are the US Department of Defense and the People's Liberation Army.
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Mar 27, 2016 01:22
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nothing to seehere posted:Also the NHS According to the list I read, they're smaller than Wal-Mart and McDonald's.
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Mar 27, 2016 01:28
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bewbies posted:it is actually because of the cluster munitions ban. it is still a really important capability, and one that cannot be backfilled for at least a decade But the US isn't a party to the cluster munitions treaty.
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Mar 27, 2016 04:10
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Phanatic posted:But the US isn't a party to the cluster munitions treaty. It is DoD policy, not the CCM.
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Mar 27, 2016 04:20
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The US actually follows a decent number of "rules of war" from treaties they never signed or have caveats for. Like they never ratified the part of the Hague Convention that banned expanding bullets in warfare, but still predominately use ball ammo (boat-tail hollow points are still in stock for sniper ammo). They also signed the Geneva Protocol banning the use of chemical and biological weapons, but reserving the right to deploy them anyway if they face an enemy that uses them.
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Mar 27, 2016 05:01
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chitoryu12 posted:The US actually follows a decent number of "rules of war" from treaties they never signed or have caveats for. Like they never ratified the part of the Hague Convention that banned expanding bullets in warfare, but still predominately use ball ammo (boat-tail hollow points are still in stock for sniper ammo). They also signed the Geneva Protocol banning the use of chemical and biological weapons, but reserving the right to deploy them anyway if they face an enemy that uses them.
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Mar 27, 2016 05:49
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HEY GAL posted:My favorite is Big Boy Rules, Steve Fainaru, written as a result of the author actually hanging out with mercenaries. I think it's that book where I learned that every other mercenary company in Iraq hated Blackwater. The book is tremendously entertaining, and it's the kind of book I'd want to write if the people I study weren't all dead and un-hangout-able
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Mar 27, 2016 11:12
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I went to an old and established German restaurant in Manhattan yesterday, called Heidelberg, and I noticed that the street address was 1648. Coincidence? The menu will make you rather hungry if you like German food: http://www.heidelberg-nyc.com/menu/
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Mar 27, 2016 14:23
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cheerfullydrab posted:I went to an old and established German restaurant in Manhattan yesterday, called Heidelberg, and I noticed that the street address was 1648. Coincidence? I've been there, great restaurant!
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Mar 27, 2016 14:30
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I went to the Wolf's Lair in NE Poland yesterday with my sister and brother-in-law. Took a ton of photos of the ruins. It's one of the stranger historical sites I've ever visited since up until the 90s it was largely just left to fall apart and even now it's not as though there appear to be serious restoration or preservation efforts under way. Here's the spot where the bomb went off on July 20th.  And Hitler's bunker (or maybe Goring's? I gotta go back through these and get them in a sensible order)  Here's the whole album if anyone is interested- http://imgur.com/a/FyZNv. It's kind of in a remote spot as I understand it, but definitely worth the trip if you find yourself with a free day in Poland.
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Mar 27, 2016 14:37
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Veritek83 posted:I went to the Wolf's Lair in NE Poland yesterday with my sister and brother-in-law. Took a ton of photos of the ruins. It's one of the stranger historical sites I've ever visited since up until the 90s it was largely just left to fall apart and even now it's not as though there appear to be serious restoration or preservation efforts under way.
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Mar 27, 2016 16:31
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Xander77 posted:What's the batmobile looking vehicle on the way? Looks like one of these.
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Mar 27, 2016 16:41
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Does anyone familiar with leather armor know if this guy's video is accurate? I've never seen his channel before but it looks quite interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuEVjxLrc9k
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Mar 27, 2016 16:52
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Nebakenezzer posted:Dear friends, can I reconvene the Pike and Shots milhist book club for a moment? It helped that the leading Nazi who wholeheartedly supported heavy bomber development and production was in a feud with other top brass over the Luftwaffe's strategic capabilities and that was quickly overcome when the former Nazi died in a plane accident. (Walter Wever was the man who died)
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Mar 27, 2016 17:24
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MrMojok posted:Oh good Lord. I have a documentary about the ME-163 Komet, the little egg-shaped rocket plane that could take off and climb virtually straight up to get to the bomber streams, and there is an actual German training film showing how they fueled it. Melting pilots, exploding engineers and more delightful characters show up in any story regarding the Me-163. Fairly certain that the Komet is the combat plane with the highest casualty to success rate in history.
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Mar 27, 2016 17:46
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bewbies posted:Most of those were destroyed by artillery, which is probably the first time in history we've seen that. 
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Mar 27, 2016 17:54
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chitoryu12 posted:Does anyone familiar with leather armor know if this guy's video is accurate? I've never seen his channel before but it looks quite interesting. As you can see from the debate raging in the comments, physical and documentary evidence for use of leather as armor is in the range of sparse to nonexistent. Leather components were used with armor made primarily from other materials, like the straps that hold plate on, but beyond that the evidence is really lacking. I think there are one or two surviving pieces that may have been armor. There are also a few grave effigies that appear to depict soldiers wearing armor pieces that may be boiled leather, because they're carved with complex decorations more consistent with leather than metal. As you can see in the youtube comments there, you will get people who insist that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, or people who will try to reverse-engineer history by insisting that if leather works as an armor material, and it was available at the time, it must have been used. But again, we have fairly massive amounts of information and evidence, often quite detailed, about textile and mail armor--in many different places, over wide stretches of time, constructed in any number of different ways. We have virtually nothing about leather armor, and that's probably a meaningful omission. Now, that's talking about the medieval period. Beginning in I think the 17th century you start to see soldiers in something called a buff coat, which is a protective garment made from thick, tough leather, and they're apparently pretty effective for what they are. There are several people in the thread who could probably tell you in depth about them. I couldn't personally tell you, for example, why people started wearing buff coats instead of gambesons. I don't know if it was more protective, or if was a style choice, or what. The experiment in the youtube video isn't exactly scientific but just on the historical basis of the buff coat I'm not surprised he found that the material worked as armor. It doesn't appear to have been used for that purpose until early modern times, but it works in theory.
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Mar 27, 2016 18:17
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Another nice (creepy as gently caress, more than Wolf's lair) place to visit is Riese complex, it's in south-west part of Poland so it's like 3 hours trip from Prague. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Riese Whole area is cool, with amazing Prussian keep with a network of tunnels that was supposed to be used to mine attacker's artillery. They had troops trained to travel them in complete darkness.
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Mar 27, 2016 18:21
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Melting pilots, exploding engineers and more delightful characters show up in any story regarding the Me-163. Fairly certain that the Komet is the combat plane with the highest casualty to success rate in history. Also of interest is what they used for gear. There was a tricycle-type arrangement attached to the bottom, and after takeoff dude would pull a lever that released it, allowing it to fall to the ground. He had to be careful to attain a certain speed and altitude before release, or else it might fall, hit the ground, bounce back up and hit the plane... possibly rupturing a tank in which case the ship might be vaporized in the resulting explosion. For landing, a single small skid extended from the bottom, dude would land on that and as the airspeed bled off it would settle to one side and skid the last few hundred feet on the skid and one wing. If the skid fails to deploy for some reason, he stands a great chance of having his back broken on touchdown. All fuel is expended at this point so he's gliding in, with one shot at "landing"
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Mar 27, 2016 18:37
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Jobbo_Fett posted:It helped that the leading Nazi who wholeheartedly supported heavy bomber development and production was in a feud with other top brass over the Luftwaffe's strategic capabilities and that was quickly overcome when the former Nazi died in a plane accident. It's true. Had Wever lived, while the Luftwaffe still would have ended up the same way, it probably would have had the Ju 89 or something similar as a heavy bomber, which would have past over a hell of a lot of procurement drama. (Knowing the Nazis it just would have lead to other, different types of drama and disasters, but, y'know) I have a question you you Mr. Fett (or anybody else who knows:) the Germans had huge problems with aircraft engines, specifically bringing new types of piston engines into production that matched the output of modern Allied designs. Did the Japanese have these sorts of problems, too?
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Mar 27, 2016 18:39
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Nebakenezzer posted:Did the Japanese have these sorts of problems, too? Absolutely. If WWII had been prolonged long enough for the last-generation USN piston aircraft to have reached the fleet in any real numbers, the disparity would have been glaring. The few high-performance aircraft that Japan managed to build during the latter years of the war had extensive maintenance and reliability issues. Meanwhile, the US was churning out R2600s and R2800s by the thousands, with the R4360, and R3350 being perfected and introduced into notional production lines in the late-1945/early-1946 time frame. F2G Corsairs, F8F Bearcats, F7F Tigercats, etc all easily could have seen combat by the end of 1946 if the US hadn't started to draw down early in 1945. The Japanese had some engines that could compete with the ~1900hp R2600 and R2800 engines, but not in anything approaching the numbers the US could build, and even those that they had weren't as reliable as American engines. (Particularly the R2800.)
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Mar 27, 2016 19:01
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HEY GAL posted:for really big news you want to look at Securitas, the company with three red dots as its logo. Those dudes are the largest single employer in the world) Motherfuckers have me wanting to kill bus conductors now. Group 4 Securicor, their private security service, is all over Denmark, and act like they're real loving police, down to having plainclothes conductors in busses. Sue me if I'm not comfortable being jumped by a corporation known for torturing palestinian kids in black prisons and killing Africans wanting to cross their own country
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Mar 27, 2016 19:03
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Note that Securitas and G4S are two completely different dystopian private security companies.  Edit: Really, if you're in any sort of public place with witnesses around, you're most likely much safer from rent-a-cops than from actual cops. Security companies don't have any problems throwing any misbehaving employees under the bus if it looks like there might be bad publicity, and their employees are generally painfully aware of that. Siivola fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Mar 27, 2016 |
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Mar 27, 2016 19:07
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Siivola posted:Note that Securitas and G4S are two completely different dystopian private security companies. Aw, hell, both suck. Anyway, I'd be a lot more comforted if bystanders didn't just let them push people around, my country is way too loving polite to give a drat about police and sec-goon brutality 
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Mar 27, 2016 19:48
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Nebakenezzer posted:It's true. Had Wever lived, while the Luftwaffe still would have ended up the same way, it probably would have had the Ju 89 or something similar as a heavy bomber, which would have past over a hell of a lot of procurement drama. (Knowing the Nazis it just would have lead to other, different types of drama and disasters, but, y'know) Yeah, but their excuse was they didn't have the materials to produce enough high-quality metals that could generate higher horsepowers. I think they only had less than five engines that ever hit 2,000HP or more. Two Homare engines reached 2,000HP Two experimental or two engines mated to one gearbox reach 2,000HP+ All of their most popular/produced engines are rated between 1,000 and 1,500 horsepower. For comparison, the F6F Hellcat started at 2,000HP. The added horsepower really helped, as it allowed them to have more armor and the many machine guns and ammo. also this MrYenko posted:Absolutely. If WWII had been prolonged long enough for the last-generation USN piston aircraft to have reached the fleet in any real numbers, the disparity would have been glaring. The few high-performance aircraft that Japan managed to build during the latter years of the war had extensive maintenance and reliability issues. Meanwhile, the US was churning out R2600s and R2800s by the thousands, with the R4360, and R3350 being perfected and introduced into notional production lines in the late-1945/early-1946 time frame. F2G Corsairs, F8F Bearcats, F7F Tigercats, etc all easily could have seen combat by the end of 1946 if the US hadn't started to draw down early in 1945.
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Mar 27, 2016 20:02
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Tias posted:Aw, hell, both suck. Not sure how it is in other countries, but in Canada, a security guard is legally required to present his license on request. If you don't have your license, you cannot perform your duties. If memory serves, you can call the cops on a security guard working without a license.
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Mar 27, 2016 20:07
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I'm not sure I understand. Security guards are not cops, why would they be allowed to push people around any more than any other fat civilian? In Canada and probably most western countries either you are a cop or you are not. I don't think you can be a privately employed brownshirt.
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Mar 27, 2016 21:13
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