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Hey Trin have you looked at Scrimgeour's Small Scribbling Diary? My copy just came today.
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Mar 31, 2016 23:13
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my dad posted:Here: Gunpowder changed that. Now you can fling a rock in a lower trajectory and faster, so they go into your enemies' walls directly, with their full force, rather than smashing into them on the downslope of a steep parabola (a lot of energy is wasted). We keep excavating older and older battlefields with tons of tiny early cannonballs from tiny early cannon in them, so cannon were definitely a thing by, say, Crecy. The first cannon were anti-personnel weapons. They get larger later on, and more common, and used against fortresses, and that's when walls start getting thicker.   Fortress at Civitavecchia. Donato Bramante and Michelangelo designed it for Julius II. Begun in 1508, completed in '37. I love this, they are clearly still thinking that towers have to be tall and round, but they're less tall, really fat, and there's gun emplacements at the top. Walls get thicker to protect themselves from gunfire. They get lower to be less of a target, and because you don't need a wall to be tall when there's cannon on top of it. Now the fortress can defend itself "actively"--it's easier for the inhabitants to shoot back, and what they shoot is more lethal--rather than "passively," just by being tall. And the walls get sloped instead of straight so less of the projectiles' energy smashes into them. Then a bunch of dudes figure out that you have less "dead space," spaces where nobody can shoot at, if you make the towers angular instead of curved or pull the bastions out into big pointed shapes. Consider Fortezza Medicea, in Siena. Here's the footprint from above https://www.google.com/maps/place/F...dmNAD4Q_BIIfjAP and this is what those pointed bastions on the corners look like:  That's from the 1560s. There is a little bit of a slope, but not as much as in later fortresses. As time goes on people increase the number of these pointed bastions and the variety of the things you can do with walls. You get things like hornworks, crownworks, lunettes, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crownwork Look at that fortress you posted and extend lines in your head from the cannons that would be on it. There are few places that are not covered by at least one person's fire, most of the time more. And the fortress itself is hunched into the surrounding earth, with moats dug around it and a large glacis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacis around the entire thing. When military engineers have to fortify an existing city or fit a fort onto a crowded little mountaintop or weird intersection of rivers, the results are weird shapes, but where they have lots of open ground the result is something as calm and self-contained as Palmanova, which was 100% planned by a dude named Scamozzi.   (1593) This kind of fortification was a thing from the 1500s until the late 19th/early 20th century. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Apr 1, 2016 |
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Mar 31, 2016 23:37
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That's really cool to know, thanks.
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Mar 31, 2016 23:43
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Hey Trin have you looked at Scrimgeour's Small Scribbling Diary? My copy just came today. I tripped over it a month or so ago while looking for something else, and many sweary words were said on the theme of "why did I not find this two years ago???". There's an expanded edition due for release in April, and it's the sort of thing that almost makes me forget how much I'd rather end up like the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council than try to do any serious archive research. HEY GAL posted:i will talk about fortresses, my friend, what do you want to talk about Excuse me but I think you'll find that's not my friend, that's my dad 
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Mar 31, 2016 23:50
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 From an unpublished artillery manual by Walter Litzelmann, 1582
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Mar 31, 2016 23:52
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The basics of that stayed viable for a looooooooong time. Look at pictures of the WW1 era french and belgian forts and you will see things that someone in Hegal's time would recognize the origins of.
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Mar 31, 2016 23:54
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Cyrano4747 posted:The basics of that stayed viable for a looooooooong time. Look at pictures of the WW1 era french and belgian forts and you will see things that someone in Hegal's time would recognize the origins of. of course, by then substantial cover above the user's head is a thing again. like the pillbox makes a comeback, which hadn't been a thing since the 1500s edit: for a famous military engineer, look up this guy's career: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9bastien_Le_Prestre_de_Vauban He also systematized the way you attack a fortress like this, which is a really complicated, really slow system of trenching and digging and poo poo. Also a very nice person personally, like one of the reasons he prefers his fortresses to be faced with brick instead of stone is that when it's shot stone sends up little chips flying around the heads of the defenders, which frightens them, and he doesn't want that. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Apr 1, 2016 |
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Mar 31, 2016 23:56
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HEY GAL posted:
Someone really liked to use their ruler, eh.
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Mar 31, 2016 23:59
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HEY GAL posted:
This looks like something I would have drawn in the 6th grade while muttering "pew pew pew." Actually I lie. It was tanks. SOOOOOO many tanks.
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Apr 1, 2016 00:00
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Cyrano4747 posted:The basics of that stayed viable for a looooooooong time. Look at pictures of the WW1 era french and belgian forts and you will see things that someone in Hegal's time would recognize the origins of.
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Apr 1, 2016 00:03
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Cyrano4747 posted:This looks like something I would have drawn in the 6th grade while muttering "pew pew pew." same also bombers, soldiers etc when rts bideo james appeared i was EUPHORIC
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Apr 1, 2016 00:04
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tiny soldiers with tiny helmets in the margins of my school work, world war 1 biplanes vroooom
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Apr 1, 2016 00:05
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HEY GAL posted:tiny soldiers with tiny helmets in the margins of my school work, world war 1 biplanes The funny thing is that everyone does that poo poo. My doctoral adviser worked on the late Kaiserreich for a while and has stories about finding Wilhelm II's minutes from very important meetings with battleships drawn in the margins blowing the gently caress out of words on the page.
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Apr 1, 2016 00:08
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Cyrano4747 posted:The funny thing is that everyone does that poo poo. My doctoral adviser worked on the late Kaiserreich for a while and has stories about finding Wilhelm II's minutes from very important meetings with battleships drawn in the margins blowing the gently caress out of words on the page.
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Apr 1, 2016 00:09
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Cyrano4747 posted:The funny thing is that everyone does that poo poo. My doctoral adviser worked on the late Kaiserreich for a while and has stories about finding Wilhelm II's minutes from very important meetings with battleships drawn in the margins blowing the gently caress out of words on the page. ahaha, that's so cool
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Apr 1, 2016 00:10
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Given Wilhelm II's penchant for margin comments, I'm not surprised in the least.
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Apr 1, 2016 00:17
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There's a book I've been meaning to get called Presidential Doodles that's all about the stuff that various Presidents throughout history scribbled on their briefings. I was always a battleship man, myself. That and F4F Wildcats-they were the easiest plane to draw 
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Apr 1, 2016 00:40
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Cool sci-fi tank with at least 5 turrets blasting it's way through a scorched no-man's land with jets dropping bombs overhead, and the sun is scowling and has sunglasses (to protect it's eyes from it's own reflection?)
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Apr 1, 2016 00:45
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The Article of War for Gustaf II Adolf (english translation of 1632)seem to be availible online here: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A13221.0001.001/1:6?rgn=div1;view=fulltext And while this is a translation I found Article 45: "No soldiour shall think himselfe too good to worke vpon any peice of Fortification, or other place, where they shalbe commanded for our service; vpon paine of punishment" To be a good indicator of the spirit of the thing. Also, duelling is forbidden. Would anyone know if there is a reasonable source somewhere about the duel/violence culture of the Swedish armies of 30W? How did these people fight, what caused fistfights and what sword duels? edit: I like how these articles seem to be in a random order, in one they are talking about prostitutes, the next one is about arson. I can't find the original Swedish edition online, though. " 89 No Whore shall be suffered in the Leaguer: but if any will haue his owne wife with him, he may. If any vnmaried wo∣man be found, he that keepes her may haue leaue lawfully to marry her; or els be forced to put her away. 90 No man shall presume to set fire on any Towne or Village in our land: If any does, he shall be punisht according to the importancy of the matter, so as the Iudges shall sentence him." Ataxerxes fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Apr 1, 2016 |
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Apr 1, 2016 01:01
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Cyrano4747 posted:I really think the inefficiencies in German industry get over-played in here, mostly because this thread is half by volume talking about the biggest, most egregious tank-shaped wastes of resources. Looking at small arms manufacture, for example, they did a pretty loving good job of churning out reasonable quality guns in high volumes with little disruption until the absolute last days of the war when supply chains just became insane. Remember: this is a country that managed to go toe-to-toe with the industrial might of what amounted to the entire rest of the world and took five years to get worn down. Acebuckeye covered part of it, but I suspect that some of the 'Bombing didn't affect production' claims are based on a bit of bad logic because the German industrial footing (Which was one of the strongest ones out there) was never fully dedicated to what might be considered a wartime focus, so production of some items could be switched over. There were cracks appearing, such as armor plate production, oil, and so on, but their effects were somewhat diminished by the retraction of the front lines. The five years number is also, IMO, a bit misleading as well. The peak of their expansion was in 1942 with the last great gasp being Operation Citadel in 1943. From that point on it was less than 2 years before they were shoved into effective nothingness. From 1939 to 1941, and possibly into 1942, they were in a superior stance than most of their foes and the great industrial giant that entered into the war was just starting to move real significant material into Europe. IIRC, a bombing raid also took out the factory that was still building Pz III hulls to turn into StuGs, which resulted in them using the still semi-viable Pz IV hull instead. Wikipedia claims that StuG III production dropped by 90% after the raid, resulting in the production being shifted to the Pz IV hull. That being said, I do think that the whole idea of strategic bombing being a war-winner was wrong, especially at that time, but it could have also been better focused on the weak points. Electrical generation is a very vulnerable target as turbines are far more fragile and harder to replace than industrial machinery, for example. The distribution stations are smaller targets and thus not well suited for accuracy of the time. More hits on oilfields would have a great effect, and a constant savaging of transportation nodes would probably start to take a toll, especially on the front lines. Taerkar fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Apr 1, 2016 |
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Apr 1, 2016 01:13
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Ataxerxes posted:The Article of War for Gustaf II Adolf (english translation of 1632)seem to be availible online here: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A13221.0001.001/1:6?rgn=div1;view=fulltext also can you read german. if so, Rad der Gewalt handles soldier-on-soldier violence and the violence of soldiers against civilians, but that's from the postwar period until the 90s. edit: the organization is of the period. they don't really have the same sense of "subject headings" that we do.
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Apr 1, 2016 01:20
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Taerkar posted:Acebuckeye covered part of it, but I suspect that some of the 'Bombing didn't affect production' claims are based on a bit of bad logic because the German industrial footing (Which was one of the strongest ones out there) was never fully dedicated to what might be considered a wartime focus, so production of some items could be switched over. There were cracks appearing, such as armor plate production, oil, and so on, but their effects were somewhat diminished by the retraction of the front lines. For what it's worth, allied planners after the war probably would've agreed-a more targeted and sustained campaign against Germany's power infrastructure (Especially the Ruhr dams, which aside from the famous Dambusters raid were never targeted often enough to cause major disruptions) and transportation networks would have been much more likely to cripple the country, a fact reinforced by numerous assessments after the German surrender. Allied commanders actually planned to use this knowledge in the strategic bombing campaign against Japan, as the next target after the firebombings would have been Japan's rail network-but fortunately the war ended before the new strategy was put into action.
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Apr 1, 2016 01:37
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Just how many dudes do you need to meaningfully defend one of those big star forts? Because it sure looks like a lot.
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Apr 1, 2016 01:39
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Might actually be a surprisingly small number. Once a month, I spend an afternoon or evening walking around the fortress I posted, and one of the things I noticed is that almost every spot on that fortress gives you a good view of a really huge area, and that the easiest paths into the fortress are placed in such a way that it's actually pretty easy to move between positions overlooking them. e: Also, a funny moment was realizing that every time I wasn't at the top of the fortress, there always was at least one convenient place above me for someone to shoot me in the back from.
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Apr 1, 2016 01:50
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my dad posted:Also, a funny moment was realizing that every time I wasn't at the top of the fortress, there always was at least one convenient place above me for someone to shoot me in the back from.
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Apr 1, 2016 01:55
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Trin Tragula posted:I tripped over it a month or so ago while looking for something else, and many sweary words were said on the theme of "why did I not find this two years ago???". There's an expanded edition due for release in April, and it's the sort of thing that almost makes me forget how much I'd rather end up like the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council than try to do any serious archive research. Well that's just sick.
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Apr 1, 2016 02:01
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HEY GAL posted:congratulations! now you know the secret of fortresses no OPSEC stuff here!
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Apr 1, 2016 02:01
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Taerkar posted:Acebuckeye covered part of it, but I suspect that some of the 'Bombing didn't affect production' claims are based on a bit of bad logic because the German industrial footing (Which was one of the strongest ones out there) was never fully dedicated to what might be considered a wartime focus, so production of some items could be switched over. That's actually incorrect. German industry and society was basically fully mobilized for war by 1939 to the point that there wasn't any more slack that could be picked up. Later increases were because of drastic wartime actions and looting the poo poo out of occupied Europe. I don't remember the specifics but Adam Tooze's Wages of Destruction has the major details.
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Apr 1, 2016 02:06
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Hogge Wild posted:no OPSEC stuff here!
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Apr 1, 2016 02:09
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:That's actually incorrect. German industry and society was basically fully mobilized for war by 1939 to the point that there wasn't any more slack that could be picked up. Later increases were because of drastic wartime actions and looting the poo poo out of occupied Europe. What? German factories didn't go to 3 shifts until much later in the war, and even in 1943 they were importing a shitload of labor for domestic servant tasks. I've seen the argument advanced that strategic bombing in some cases increased the supply of labor for factory jobs, by destroying a lot of the urban service sector (it's a lot easier to destroy restaurants and cafes than heavy machine tools) and freeing those workers for more important tasks; if German industry had been fully mobilized in 1939 that wouldn't have been the case. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Apr 1, 2016 |
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Apr 1, 2016 02:11
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Acebuckeye13 posted:There's a book I've been meaning to get called Presidential Doodles that's all about the stuff that various Presidents throughout history scribbled on their briefings. I had it until o gave it to my father in law. It's ok but not amazing. Get it used. The new price is absurd.
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Apr 1, 2016 02:26
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Question for historians! Well, more to the technical nitty-gritty of it. I have my grandpa's old photo album from a year of his time as a submariner (1950), and it's a darn treasure of photos, with labels and even some dates! All awesome submarine stuff. Unfortunately, the album is falling apart, and I'd like to look into getting it professionally preserved.The tape is peeling, the photos are flaking, the backing is disintegration, ect. What sort of terms do you plug into the old google for that? Should I be sending this off to someone, or look for a local museum or preservationist to do it? It's about a 100 photos, and the album it's self has been artfully doodled on by Pa. I think it would be great to get this preserved. Then I'll be able to scan and photograph them without fear of ruining anything. Oh, and keep the history in the family, submarines are awesome.
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Apr 1, 2016 03:05
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Suspect Bucket posted:Question for historians! Well, more to the technical nitty-gritty of it. I have my grandpa's old photo album from a year of his time as a submariner (1950), and it's a darn treasure of photos, with labels and even some dates! All awesome submarine stuff. Unfortunately, the album is falling apart, and I'd like to look into getting it professionally preserved.The tape is peeling, the photos are flaking, the backing is disintegration, ect. What sort of terms do you plug into the old google for that? Should I be sending this off to someone, or look for a local museum or preservationist to do it? It's about a 100 photos, and the album it's self has been artfully doodled on by Pa. I think it would be great to get this preserved. Then I'll be able to scan and photograph them without fear of ruining anything. Oh, and keep the history in the family, submarines are awesome. I'd find a nearby historical museum or archive and ask them for advice.
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Apr 1, 2016 03:44
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When it comes to items like that scanning is never going to be a great option just due to the way it can gently caress with the spine. What you want to do is get a decent camera and take high quality pictures of the pages. Get a tripod so you can keep it fixed a set distance above the page, light it properly (no flash, indirect light, etc) and take them that way. You can get acceptable-ish results with a point and shoot just held above the paper (I've got gigs of pictures of documents from archives done that way) but that's more of a rough and ready OK-ish solution.
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Apr 1, 2016 04:08
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You used a tripod? Luxury.
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Apr 1, 2016 04:10
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Cyrano4747 posted:Another thing that needs to be mentioned is how the property that was expropriated from Jews and Communists was liberally distributed as hand outs. Gotz Ally wrote a great book - Hitler's Beneficiaries - that explores this large scale wealth transfer and how it bought a lot of loyalty. We're talking everything from a store taking over the Jewish competitor down the block to neighbors carting off the furniture and silverware of the Jews "resettled to the East." How much impact did the Holocaust have on the German ability to wage war, positively or negatively? If you took it out of history, would WW2 remain relatively unchanged, or not? Would there have even been a WW2 in a recognizable way, or would the difference in mindset the Nazi leadership etc would have had to have made it totally different? I ask 'cause for most WW2 strategy games (yeah I know) they don't have references to the Holocaust at all; I generally thought that was pretty understandable since you don't wanna have people participating in simulated genocide, but recently the lead developer of one (Hearts of Iron 4) justified it instead by saying the Holocaust wasn't really relevant to the war effort, unlike something like the Soviet army purges (which are modeled in the game, by comparison). Is he right?
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Apr 1, 2016 04:11
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Cyrano4747 posted:When it comes to items like that scanning is never going to be a great option just due to the way it can gently caress with the spine. What about a handheld scanner?
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Apr 1, 2016 04:25
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Koramei posted:How much impact did the Holocaust have on the German ability to wage war, positively or negatively? If you took it out of history, would WW2 remain relatively unchanged, or not? Would there have even been a WW2 in a recognizable way, or would the difference in mindset the Nazi leadership etc would have had to have made it totally different?
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Apr 1, 2016 04:25
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HEY GAL posted:what are puttees for, what is their purpose? I did a reverse image search and apparently those are actual French soldiers wearing WWI uniforms for 2014's Bastille Day. The wikipedia wormhole puttee-chat sent me down also taught me that Boer War-era British Service Dress apparently still exists as number 2 dress? Which kind of owns.
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Apr 1, 2016 04:29
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Taerkar posted:That being said, I do think that the whole idea of strategic bombing being a war-winner was wrong, especially at that time, but it could have also been better focused on the weak points. Electrical generation is a very vulnerable target as turbines are far more fragile and harder to replace than industrial machinery, for example. The distribution stations are smaller targets and thus not well suited for accuracy of the time. More hits on oilfields would have a great effect, and a constant savaging of transportation nodes would probably start to take a toll, especially on the front lines. German transportation networks were targeted, and were made messed up by allied bombing - the problem is that this sort of infrastructure is fairly easy to repair, especially as these things tend to be networks. The American strategic bombing campaign did spend a lot of time looking for those industrial weak points and blowing them up, but they were constrained that strategic bombing in WW2 was a numbers game; you needed big fleets of bombers to have a good chance of wrecking a target. So electrical generation was a weak point, you are totally right, but it was easier to target, say, steel production, aircraft production, tank production - because those would be in large factories. This is why the Schweinfurt ball bearing plant was seen as such a great target - because ball bearings are needed in all the German war machines. They of course eventually hit the jackpot when they started concentrating on fuel production, both natural and synthetic. Ball bearings, the Germans could adapt. But fuel was irreplaceable.
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Apr 1, 2016 04:37
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