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Cythereal posted:China seems like the world's ultimate tarpit for would-be conquerors, right up there with "The Graveyard of Empires" Afghanistan. well, China has been "conquered" several times, and "reunified" through warfare in much the same way  wars in China tend to results in a lot of dead people, though, compared to European wars.Of course, for the majority of those conquerors, they wound up adopting a lot of Chinese practices, both because China culturally dominated Asia to such a degree that a lot of would-be-conqueror peoples already had a strong cultural connection with China, and also since actually controlling China via adopting its Confucian bureaucracy was a lot easier than making waves amongst people who already sort of viewed you with some disdain for being a barbarian of some variety. The Manchu, for instance, made some attempts to force Manchu cultural practices (such as the queue hair style and Manchu dress) onto the Chinese and stuffed Manchus into all the important government positions, but also bent over backwards trying to prove that they were super duper Confucian. Didn't stop people from revolting, which in China is as easy as some provincial governor deciding not to send taxes in since putting them down would require marshalling a rather unwieldy military force to conduct a large campaign, but even with the anti-Manchu sentiments, Qing still ruled for several hundred years, barring a few hiccups like the most bloody civil war in human history. It helps that the Chinese had a pretty loose sense of things like nation-states and the whole Mandate of Heaven concept was nearly tailor made for any would be conqueror to park his rear end on the celestial throne and make the claim that they only won China because Heaven said it was okay, which gave everyone a nice excuse to just go along with it. The position of Emperor comes with a lot of perks, one of which is having to answer to nobody at all and having a cultural mythos which holds questioning your rightful position as an unthinkable taboo (unless you've lost the Mandate of Heaven in which case gently caress you loser; maintaining power in China is analogous to maintaining power in a prison gang in how shaky it can end up being), and a bureaucracy at your beck and call which was also your only hope of getting any sort of poo poo done. It also really helped that in a nation as huge as China, there's nearly always some political faction or family that is more than willing to throw the previous dynasty under the bus for a chance at social mobility. The Manchu were able to get quite a few Ming generals to defect over to their side, despite being dirty foreigners. (as an aside, I don't think Genghis Khan did so much assimilation stuff himself, but his descendents begun acting like "proper" Confucian emperors in short order. I know for the Manchu it went in the same sort of direction with each generation becoming more and more Chinese, culturally speaking). For most people in China, they really couldn't give less of a poo poo; they're only real exposure to government was the powerful landlords kicking them around and that didn't really change depending on who was on the throne. If things got bad for them, then they could leap upon the anti-foreigner sentiment rather quickly, though, but then again in China the peasants could leap onto all sorts of crazy bandwagons so it is not exactly an anti-foreigner thing to have angry common folk. Under the Qing and with so much foreign pressure and influence messing up the whole Chinese paradigm, nationalism started to emerge as a serious political force and you started to see anti-foreigner riots and a stronger sense of a real Chinese nation, which wound up worrying the poo poo out the Qing and caused them to waffle back and forth on how to respond to things like the Boxer Rebellion. They saw the Boxers as useful tools for getting rid of foreigners, but being foreigners themselves, and being very cognizant of the rather long tradition of crazy huge peasant revolts in Chinese history that sometimes succeed, they were pretty nervous about them as well. The English had enough sense to realize that actually trying to conquer China was never going to fly; foreigners ruling China in a Confucian manner might fly, but some foreign barbarian king trying to rule as a non-Chinese would had resulted in a lot of people willing to fight to the death. So they just would just bully the Qing since they knew the Qing couldn't really do poo poo about them without risking their own position. The Japanese invasion also ran into that issue; they tried installing a puppet government and exploited the tensions between Manchu and Han, but by that point Chinese nationalism was a Thing, as was anti-Japanese sentiment, and the Chinese theatre turned into the long horrible slog of attritional warfare. Tiler Kiwi fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Apr 23, 2016 |
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Apr 23, 2016 16:01
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"Guns again! the quiet Shakes at the vengeful voice… It is terrible pleasure I do not fear; I rejoice." -- Robert Nichols The French 75 Nichols used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiiwCbVgCOw A single battery of modern 155mm from the pointy end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TBl9cwanbI Observers observing a training fire of rather more Great War proportions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSo52Hn8gxQ Similar regimental-scale fire at night from the gun line: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYR-H4Hgoz8 Also, on the tangent of WWI not learning various lessons from the ACW (e.g. trenches = bad), you'd think Burnside would've heard of Napoleon or at least the Light Brigade, but apparently not, he attempted a frontal assault over bridges and uphill against Stonewall Jackson ... who had been an artillery instructor before the war. That went about as poorly as you'd expect. In other news (ridiculous bayonets were mentioned recently), I just used my SMLE bayonet (Wilkinson, March '18, they now make razor blades) to open a bottle of cold medicine because I haven't fingernails enough to peel the foil off and it was the nearest pointy thing. The rifle it goes on is a 1916 Enfield Sht LE Mk III:  With bayonet fixed:  When standing at attention, the tip of the bayonet is at eyebrow level (I'm 5'6"). It was the first modern-length rifle, it's the same size as the M1 Garand. The previous Magazine Lee-Enfield, along with most of its contemporaries, had a 5" longer barrel; the Short MLE had a barrel length between carbine and long rifle, hence the ridiculous bayonet. Not the best substitute for a pike when forming squares against cavalry, but at 1.5M overall it's a half-decent partisan/glaive. This guy must be eight feet tall:  The rifle is 43.5", muzzle is around the bottom of the breast pocket when I hold it like that. We also have a 1915 Webley revolver:  Really need to reshoot those last two since I removed the wire. The stock under the wire was sound, amazingly.
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Apr 23, 2016 20:06
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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Cythereal posted:China seems like the world's ultimate tarpit for would-be conquerors, right up there with "The Graveyard of Empires" Afghanistan. Does it? It has actually been conquered several times, and I'm not even counting the 20th century concessions to European imperial ambitions.
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Apr 23, 2016 20:34
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JcDent posted:Well, you can conquer it to gain ritch, but it's a bitch to run. Afghans. Afghanis are the local currency, it's a insult to refer to someone from Afghanistan as such. Also while we might have that view of Afghanistan now it used to be much more important, as control of it was a vital national security concern for British India and the southern portion of the Russian itself, since whichever side controlled Afghanistan could use it as a transport route and staging post to invade the other. Something similar is going on nowadays between Pakistan and India - Pakistan are not funding the Taliban for no reason, Islamabad is very concerned that without making efforts the Afghan national government will be swayed to becoming friendly to India, something that is obviously not desirable for a state that lies right on Pakistan's border. Afghanistan's tragedy isn't that it is barren or unimportant - it's that it's too important to all of its neighbours for them to not interfere or risk it moving out of their sphere of influence.
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Apr 23, 2016 20:35
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Delivery McGee posted:The French 75 Nichols used: Looks simple enough for an idiot like me to use!
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Apr 23, 2016 20:38
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JcDent posted:Looks simple enough for an idiot like me to use! What is that instrument they place on it every time before discharging? Seems like a calibration instrumento of some sort, to ensure the gun hasn't been moved by fire?
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Apr 23, 2016 20:44
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steinrokkan posted:What is that instrument they place on it every time before discharging? Seems like a calibration instrumento of some sort, to ensure the gun hasn't been moved by fire? It is a gunners quadrant, used exactly for what you say. Example from the era: 
razak fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Apr 23, 2016 |
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Apr 23, 2016 20:55
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steinrokkan posted:Does it? It has actually been conquered several times, and I'm not even counting the 20th century concessions to European imperial ambitions. It's a sort of reference to the way China 'conquers the conquerer' by introducing their new steppe overlord to concepts like regular and easily collected tax revenue being more profitable than straight up looting and peasants being easier to control via the Mandate of Heaven than by force of arms. It sort of works. The Liao, Jin, Yuan, and Qing dynasties were all foreigners who sinicized to some extent, but in two of those cases they were also strongly committed to their nomad heritage and the other had reservations about letting Chinese into the upper echelons of power (although I think the Qing softened up over time out of necessity). Although the Chinese tend to overstate this a bit as part of their 'our culture is the best ever' thing which makes sense because it's the scholar-bureaucrats that end up writing the history books so those guys like to put their spin on how things played out and all of them are hardcore Confucianists. For an example of the conflict between foreign overlords and their Chinese subjects; Chinggis Khan had a sinicized Khitan advisor/friend name Yelu Chucai perform a test when the advisor pointed out you could collect more from stable taxation than from straight up theft and the khan listened to his advisor after the test was successful and gave the go ahead for a reform program. After Chinggis died his successor Ogodei was significantly less receptive to the idea because it wasn't suitably Mongolian until Yelu phrased it as "More money = more war". Ithle01 fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Apr 23, 2016 |
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Apr 23, 2016 20:57
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You're the crew of an open topped vehicle - a Nashorn, a Priest, whatever random AFV with an exposed crew compartment - and it starts to rain. What happens? Did the crew stretch a tarp across the top, have to wrap up vital components to protect them, or just sat shivering in the rain as it poured in through the top?
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Apr 25, 2016 07:01
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Von Humboldt posted:You're the crew of an open topped vehicle - a Nashorn, a Priest, whatever random AFV with an exposed crew compartment - and it starts to rain. What happens? Did the crew stretch a tarp across the top, have to wrap up vital components to protect them, or just sat shivering in the rain as it poured in through the top? They probably had some canvas cover thing on a set of hoops that they'd swing overhead like a conestoga wagon.
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Apr 25, 2016 07:07
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Generally speaking, open-topped AFVs had tarps/covers to shelter the crew from the elements. They didn't always work well since you're really just protecting yourself from rain or snow, but not the heat or cold.FAUXTON posted:They probably had some canvas cover thing on a set of hoops that they'd swing overhead like a conestoga wagon. From what I've seen, not even. They just drape it over the compartment.   
Jobbo_Fett fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Apr 25, 2016 |
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Apr 25, 2016 07:16
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Generally speaking, open-topped AFVs had tarps/covers to shelter the crew from the elements. They didn't always work well since you're really just protecting yourself from rain or snow, but not the heat or cold. Haha, those poor bastards.
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Apr 25, 2016 07:17
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FAUXTON posted:Haha, those poor bastards. Yeah. And you wouldn't want to completely close off the compartment in combat because of the fumes from firing the gun, which is why tanks have ventilators.
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Apr 25, 2016 07:24
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That was a problem with SU-76s, M10 and the like, or was it Jerry-only?
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Apr 25, 2016 07:50
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JcDent posted:That was a problem with SU-76s, M10 and the like, or was it Jerry-only? Should be all of them, but it also depends on how exposed the crew is. The Marder II had its crew incredibly exposed:  (Note the canvas cover below and to the left of the jerry can) VS M10 
Jobbo_Fett fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Apr 25, 2016 |
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Apr 25, 2016 08:01
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And its not like open-tops were only for tank destroyers (Marders are just easy to find), spgs like the Hummel, Wespe, or Priest were also exposed in various ways. Barring logistic problems, I can't see why any of them wouldn't be supplied with a canvas to at least somewhat mitigate rain or snow.
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Apr 25, 2016 08:10
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I wonder if it'd be possible for a field engineer to rig something to tap some of the massive amounts of heat coming out of the engine and warm that section, without accidentally asphyxiating the crew?
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Apr 25, 2016 08:16
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The Lone Badger posted:I wonder if it'd be possible for a field engineer to rig something to tap some of the massive amounts of heat coming out of the engine and warm that section, without accidentally asphyxiating the crew? To some degree, sure, it's just not going to be very comfortable.
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Apr 25, 2016 09:58
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Yeah. And you wouldn't want to completely close off the compartment in combat because of the fumes from firing the gun, which is why tanks have ventilators. I think it was the guy who wrote the hilarious tanker memoirs on the Korean War who said the maximum rate of fire for a Centurion was however many shells the loader could put through the gun before they passed out from the fumes Also as for ventilators, not all tanks had them...
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Apr 25, 2016 12:05
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MikeCrotch posted:I think it was the guy who wrote the hilarious tanker memoirs on the Korean War who said the maximum rate of fire for a Centurion was however many shells the loader could put through the gun before they passed out from the fumes Ha, true.
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Apr 25, 2016 12:15
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WW2 Data Today's sample sees a lot of markers, float lights, and flares from the IJN inventory. What did they use as a chemical composition to produce smoke and/or light on water and how did it react? Which design produced a smoke that was heavier than air? In one example, what was the difference between the float being painted black or white? On average, how long did the flares or floats stay lit? All that and more at the blog!
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Apr 25, 2016 15:32
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It's easy to say poor open-top AFV crews when comparing them to a tank, but it should also be noted that it's not like the infantry that was marching along with them carried umbrellas. Sometimes if you're at war you're just going to have to get out in the rain and snow a bit. I imagine that what care was given to keeping the elements out had nothing to do with Gefreiter Schmidt getting his hair wet and catching the sniffles and everything to do with keeping the controls of the vehicles dry and rust-free. Even then they were probably pretty robust given the era. Think more 1940s era tractor, less modern electronics-ridden vehicle. edit: in that vein, note that US submarines had air conditioners because it helped keep the electronics in the boat from freaking out due to too much humidity. Crew comfort was nice, and it certainly had very quantifiable benefits in terms of their ability to do their jobs better and for longer periods of time, but that was a side effect rather than the main purpose.
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Apr 25, 2016 15:46
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It isn't like you sleep in your tank, those things are a little cramped and uncomfortable. Even modern tanks that have air conditioning and poo poo.
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Apr 25, 2016 15:49
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bewbies posted:It isn't like you sleep in your tank, those things are a little cramped and uncomfortable. Even modern tanks that have air conditioning and poo poo. And presumably those modern tanks have a/c more for if things go full WMD in the Fulda Gap and you need to keep gas/radiation out than crew comfort...
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Apr 25, 2016 15:53
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Did soldiers in WWII listen to the radio for entertainment?
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Apr 25, 2016 15:57
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Yep. There are famous examples of allied soldiers in n Africa listening to German radio out of Hungary I think.
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Apr 25, 2016 16:03
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i know some US soldiers in the Pacific would tune into the propaganda stations the Japanese had set up, for shits and giggles. Presumably they listened to other things as well.
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Apr 25, 2016 16:03
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Didn't some of the various propaganda stations also just broadcast popular music or whatever in between the political stuff to try to entice soldiers to tune in? Or am I just completely misremembering something.
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Apr 25, 2016 16:07
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By far the most famous example was the Lale Anderson song "Lili Marlene" (although it had a different title at the time) which became a staple of both Axis and Allied soldiers. It became popular enough that the OSS hired Marlene Dietrich to do her own version for their German-language broadcasts, and she ended up singing it a bunch to soldiers at the front on her various USO gigs. Pretty much anyone who served on any side of the ETO would have known that song, and soldiers from both sides were listening to it on their enemies radio broadcasts at various stages in the conflict. I double checked and the station I alluded to earlier was in Belgrade.
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Apr 25, 2016 16:15
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Empress Theonora posted:Didn't some of the various propaganda stations also just broadcast popular music or whatever in between the political stuff to try to entice soldiers to tune in? Or am I just completely misremembering something. Playing modern music was a great way to get the average Allied (particularly American) grunt, sick of boring Army programming, to listen to your propaganda. Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw Haw famously exploited that niche. Some survives, phone posting but it's worth a Google.
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Apr 25, 2016 16:15
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Empress Theonora posted:Didn't some of the various propaganda stations also just broadcast popular music or whatever in between the political stuff to try to entice soldiers to tune in? Or am I just completely misremembering something.
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Apr 25, 2016 16:16
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CoolCab posted:Playing modern music was a great way to get the average Allied (particularly American) grunt, sick of boring Army programming, to listen to your propaganda. Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw Haw famously exploited that niche. Not really very different from how commercial radio (or TV) works. They play songs (or shows) in order to get you to stick around for the commercials.
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Apr 25, 2016 16:18
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Here: German version by Lale Anderson that would have been listened to by everyone in N. Africa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8btnYYDbkqQ German version by Marlene Dietrich that would have been broadcast by the OSS to give the Wehrmacht something to listen to besides the propaganda (this is a live version but whatever): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDQnfF6-j48 English version sung by Marlene Dietrich. This is her doing it post-war, but it's the version that she was singing for Allied troops in 1944-45. You know it's gotten to be an issue when it gets translated so they can coopt it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M7kyr1jYks Edit: on a personal note I like Dietrich's version a LOT better than Anderson's. It's a cover, but goddamn is she a better singer.
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Apr 25, 2016 16:23
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CoolCab posted:Playing modern music was a great way to get the average Allied (particularly American) grunt, sick of boring Army programming, to listen to your propaganda. Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw Haw famously exploited that niche. Lord Haw Haw: should have become a German citizen, bro If we're talking about propaganda radio, the Nazi swing covers deserve a mention. The Nazis recorded a bunch of popular jazz ballads of the time, and then changed the lyrics to pro-nazi messages. I've heard a rumor, but can't confirm, that Churchill found this poo poo hilarious. FDR Jones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6g78UQ-ohQ The *original* is kinda rapey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrlCv0ITzBs Re: recent conversations about strategic bombing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5LRaU9xcLQ I give you a German Nazi imitating a black man singing in English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnkfvkgQ8fU Initially a good idea, then unintentionally hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdcMHeJ9XrU
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Apr 25, 2016 16:36
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MReV9dkAVhY
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Apr 25, 2016 16:39
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Deteriorata posted:Not really very different from how commercial radio (or TV) works. They play songs (or shows) in order to get you to stick around for the commercials. Yeah, it's almost surprising how modern it sounds sometimes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l39iZb4uSpE "And now, for the first blow to your morale! (swing music)" Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino was actually being coerced, and eventually (after a pretty loving embarassing period of American justice) was pardoned. I have it in my head that the most famous Lord Haw Haw was also the last person to be hung for treason in the United Kingdom, or last non-British citizen, or something like that.
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Apr 25, 2016 16:40
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Cyrano4747 posted:edit: in that vein, note that US submarines had air conditioners because it helped keep the electronics in the boat from freaking out due to too much humidity. Crew comfort was nice, and it certainly had very quantifiable benefits in terms of their ability to do their jobs better and for longer periods of time, but that was a side effect rather than the main purpose. The never-ending issues that the USN S-boats had due to condensing moisture while submerged makes this point all by itself.
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Apr 25, 2016 16:45
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Nebakenezzer posted:Lord Haw Haw: should have become a German citizen, bro Wouldn't have helped. I mean, he was an American citizen to start with! They kind of nailed him for treason on a technicality. Per Wiki, ' However, the Attorney General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, successfully argued that Joyce's possession of a British passport, even though he had mis-stated his nationality to get it, entitled him (until it expired) to British diplomatic protection in Germany and therefore he owed allegiance to the king at the time he commenced working for the Germans. It was on this basis that Joyce was convicted of the third charge and sentenced to death on 19 September 1945'
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Apr 25, 2016 16:58
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feedmegin posted:Wouldn't have helped. I mean, he was an American citizen to start with! They kind of nailed him for treason on a technicality. Per Wiki, ' However, the Attorney General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, successfully argued that Joyce's possession of a British passport, even though he had mis-stated his nationality to get it, entitled him (until it expired) to British diplomatic protection in Germany and therefore he owed allegiance to the king at the time he commenced working for the Germans. It was on this basis that Joyce was convicted of the third charge and sentenced to death on 19 September 1945' the corollary to inter arma enim silent leges is that after the law tends to overcompensate for the dead air
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Apr 25, 2016 17:05
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Fangz posted:Did soldiers in WWII listen to the radio for entertainment? There's a lot of stuff in Spike Milligan's war memoirs (he was a gunner and often worked operating the radio) about having two sets on the go at once, one patched into the radio net and the other one tuned into whatever propaganda station it could pick up. quote:We moved off at dusk into the approaching darkness, the noise of the wind making conversation difficult. I switched on the set, the red contact and the working light came alive. I donned headphones, tuned into battery network, the interference was appalling, the voice of Shapiro at the Command Post barely audible, so I went on to morse-key. The night was pitch black, the mud a foot deep with the differential constantly coming in contact with rocks. I tuned in B.B.C. News, passed spare headphones into the cab.
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Apr 25, 2016 17:28
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