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feedmegin posted:a) Depends which Napoleon, actually a) the Palmerston forts were pretty much a sop from parliament to the military industrial complex, not a real response to a threatened invasion b) 'if they beat the royal navy first' is pretty much the exact win condition for Sealion.
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May 6, 2016 15:17
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Literally none of the German forces could expect local superiority for Sealion, and the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe would basically need to totally destroy their opposite numbers.HEY GAL posted:that isn't robbery, it's part of the laws of war that if you beat someone you have the right to their things. that's why wars exist, if you think about it. also why it isn't wrong to plunder the dead. The Thirty Years War makes me uncomfortable. Seriously, it's a giant book that is physically uncomfortable to hold. xthetenth fucked around with this message at 15:19 on May 6, 2016 |
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May 6, 2016 15:17
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xthetenth posted:That's half an investment in having cleaner bottoms and thus speed when they need it and half an expense now to keep the longer term maintenance costs down. also i'm very disappointed that no-one took the opportunity to make a clean bottoms joke here. something about combating dysentery perhaps?
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May 6, 2016 15:19
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Britain would have been super hosed if Napoleon landed his pre 1812 veterans on the shore if they somehow got past the Royal Navy. Also keep in mind with the naive attitudes of some people of the early 20th century, there hasn't been a majorly bloody conflict in western Europe since the Napoleonic Wars. War correspondence only appeared as a major force during the Crimean War so only the public perception is only slightly better off about this sort of thing than a century ago. Every former public school boy and his grubbier lesser peers only know about war either from slightly rose tinted crusty tales from old snoddies in the corner of the pub or insanely patriotic books and pamphlets promoted during the later part of the 19th century. People in the UK are still trying to figuire out what the gently caress was with the Boer War when the 1st World War arrived.
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May 6, 2016 15:21
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thatbastardken posted:a) the Palmerston forts were pretty much a sop from parliament to the military industrial complex, not a real response to a threatened invasion I agree that even at the time their usefulness was controversial, but they weren't just built for funsies or as an industrial subsidy, enough people were genuinely concerned about France at the time that they got built, and they weren't cheap. quote:b) 'if they beat the royal navy first' is pretty much the exact win condition for Sealion. Well, and the RAF before that, yes. My point is that that is a non-starter for Germany in 1941 but perfectly plausible for Napoleon; I mean, France and Spain between them had more ships than Nelson did at Trafalgar. Edit: no bloody conflict in Europe since the Napoleonic Wars? I hope you're talking about Britain specifically there because the Italian wars of unification, Austro-Prussian War, Franco-Prussian War and the Carlist Wars all killed a bunch of people. feedmegin fucked around with this message at 15:25 on May 6, 2016 |
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May 6, 2016 15:23
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also, the turn of the 19th/20th century was really optimistic, and the turn of the 16th/17th century was extremely...not, so the wealthy guys who were slightly less likely to get shat on by life would also have been educated enough to have been familiar with current trends in literature and philosophy and would probably not have been surprised that the world permafucked itself from 1618 to 1659xthetenth posted:The Thirty Years War makes me uncomfortable. Seriously, it's a giant book that is physically uncomfortable to hold. in both senses of the term, i guess HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 15:36 on May 6, 2016 |
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May 6, 2016 15:31
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feedmegin posted:Edit: no bloody conflict in Europe since the Napoleonic Wars? I hope you're talking about Britain specifically there because the Italian wars of unification, Austro-Prussian War, Franco-Prussian War and the Carlist Wars all killed a bunch of people. Well yeah, I thought it was obvious I was talking about the British Officers/soldiers view of things?
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May 6, 2016 15:35
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feedmegin posted:I agree that even at the time their usefulness was controversial, but they weren't just built for funsies or as an industrial subsidy, enough people were genuinely concerned about France at the time that they got built, and they weren't cheap. sorry yeah, I'm talking specifically about the experience of the upper-middle class English officers who are so shocked and offended when war crimes happen to them instead of a) poor and b) brown people. I'll concede that I'm probably looking at the threat of Napoleonic invasion with the benefit of hindsight which makes me very cynical about the whole thing.
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May 6, 2016 15:38
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People at the time certainly didn't know Napoleon weirdly knew nothing about naval matters and just saw him repeatedlty pantsing Austria and Russia again and again. Then unfortunately for Napoleon, the Austrians and Russians eventually learned what not to do.
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May 6, 2016 15:41
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thatbastardken posted:sorry yeah, I'm talking specifically about the experience of the upper-middle class English officers who are so shocked and offended when war crimes happen to them instead of a) poor and b) brown people. Well, I mean, the 20th century British people who were affected by WWI would also have been looking at the threat of Napoleonic invasion with the benefit of hindsight.
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May 6, 2016 15:43
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Hindsight is only 20/20 if you're not wearing Kipling's rose-tinted glasses. Remember that Cowper guy who came up in the discussion of ironclad ships and turrets a few pages back? He was interviewed by the royal commission that lead to the construction of the Palmerston forts and was so pissed off at their questioning that he had to be asked to leave the room. thatbastardken fucked around with this message at 15:51 on May 6, 2016 |
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May 6, 2016 15:49
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thatbastardken posted:
This attitude still prevails today when discussing the history of the British army. "Well we played fair!" Is the grand old lie that hides the concentration camps, the rape and torture of the kikuyu and unnumbered massacre after massacre after massacre. We played fair old chaps, gave it our best shot, time to go home!
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May 6, 2016 16:19
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Chapter 2, Article 4 of the 1907 Hague Convention:quote:Prisoners of war are in the power of the hostile Government, but not in that of the individuals or corps who captured them. That last clause is one that was honoured far more in the breach than the observance. The British fair-play stiff-upper-lip officer corps cared a lot more about it than anyone else, froo-frooing around playing at being a good chivalrous knight of honour, while Tommy's reaction was far more along the lines of "hey Fritz, that's a nice watch you've got there, you won't be needing it where you're going, will you?" Looting and pillaging of a town or place is also strictly prohibited, and also treated in much the same way. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 16:31 on May 6, 2016 |
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May 6, 2016 16:24
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HEY GAL posted:how do surrenders usually work for your dudes? Because this account looks pretty familiar to me. In this era, war is something heroic adventurous volunteers do halfway across the globe, subject to high-minded military regulations and discipline as well ad the customs of gentlemanship, and it only lasts for a couple years tops. Not that looting and various war crimes didn't happen, but people seemed rather ashamed of the whole thing and tended to downplay it in their tales (Trin's commented several times on the self-censorship that the British in particular tended to practice), and it usually wasn't directed at their own side's civilians (though several of Trin's correspondents have made mention of stealing food or wine or something). I think the fact that soldiering wasn't a lifelong thing has a lot to do with it. They do seem to feel that there was a clear divide between "civilian" and "soldier" norms and that certain things that civilians might disapprove of might be understandable lapses of morality when you've been starving in a muddy ditch full of corpses under fire for long enough. But they also knew full well that they were just temporary soldiers and hoped to go back to being civilians, so even though they acted like soldiers, they tended to keep those civilian standards in mind in their inner narrative and their communications back home. Even the career soldiers were mostly peacetime soldiers who hadn't fought much of anything more than a short colonial conflict. Either way, what happens in the battlefield stays in the battlefield, and only sanitized tales of heroics make their way back to the civilians in the homeland. For example, the Telegraph's coverage of the surrender praises "the glory of a defence which will rank high amongst the greatest exploits of history and surround with lustre the names of General TOWNSHEND and his undaunted followers", states that it was "conducted with a gallantry and fortitude that will be for ever memorable", makes clear that "only a shallow view of the defence of Kut ... would relegate it to the limbo of military or political mistakes, as though the heroism of our troops and the grim determination of their commander had been wasted in a wholly fruitless and meaningless struggle", and the whole affair is referred to as "one of the greatest pages in the heroic annals of the British Army".
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May 6, 2016 16:43
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I didn't realize in the First World War prisoner exchanges happened, and people being exchanged had to take an oath to not take up arms again against the exchanging country. Some of the captured Zeppelin flyers were exchanged and spent the rest of the war in training positions.
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May 6, 2016 16:44
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It's the combination of privilege and romanticism (after all, nationalism is a very romantic ideology at heart, if you think about it) that did created that worldview. World War 1 did to that worldview what Don Quixote did to chivalric romance. Speaking of, I always found it interesting that Don Quixote was written fairly shortly before the 30 Years' War, and the infamous "If you want to make war in such a way that the people back home will enjoy it and not be disgusted by it, you want God Himself as a general, not me"
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May 6, 2016 16:58
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Nebakenezzer posted:I didn't realize in the First World War prisoner exchanges happened, and people being exchanged had to take an oath to not take up arms again against the exchanging country. Some of the captured Zeppelin flyers were exchanged and spent the rest of the war in training positions. This happened in the ACW until the North stopped it, which lead to not-so-great POW camps on both sides.
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May 6, 2016 17:04
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my dad posted:It's the combination of privilege and romanticism (after all, nationalism is a very romantic ideology at heart, if you think about it) that did created that worldview. World War 1 did to that worldview what Don Quixote did to chivalric romance. Speaking of, I always found it interesting that Don Quixote was written fairly shortly before the 30 Years' War... speaking of, let's check some dates: the first volume of don quixote was written in '05, by which time the Eighty Years' War (then in temporary hiatus) had already been going on for 37 years. It's interesting that Cervantes actually was a soldier, for about ten years. He HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 17:15 on May 6, 2016 |
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May 6, 2016 17:07
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OK, which one of you guys did this?
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May 6, 2016 17:14
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Seems pretty tenuous to claim Cervantes was *that* great, though he did well to overcome his parentage.
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May 6, 2016 17:24
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Miguel de Cervantes Astuta
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May 6, 2016 17:28
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HEY GAL posted:Miguel de Cervantes Astuta You are a horrible, horrible person and should be ashamed of yourself.
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May 6, 2016 18:21
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HEY GAL posted:edit: and as far as hard feelings, the 20th century sees a lot more personal spite between members of opposing forces than the 17th. Inventing nationalism and conscription was probably the worst idea anyone ever had.
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May 6, 2016 20:22
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lenoon posted:This attitude still prevails today when discussing the history of the British army. "Well we played fair!" Is the grand old lie that hides the concentration camps, the rape and torture of the kikuyu and unnumbered massacre after massacre after massacre. We played fair old chaps, gave it our best shot, time to go home! Going to make an objection on this one now. I work in a British Military musuem. We've got a pretty honest and brutal retelling of the Boer War concentration camps on display with pretty much 100% admission of guilt and irresponsibility for all those involved. It's not Turkey denying the Armenian genocide levels.
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May 6, 2016 20:54
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my dad posted:OK, which one of you guys did this? He's actually a demon pirate come back from the dead who roams the land searching for the one true prize.
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May 6, 2016 21:00
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And as I've said before, public perception and heritage perception is very different. Even in the peace movement, there's people with absolutely no historical knowledge who accept the british=murderer rhetoric just as thoughtlessly as anyone who accepts the british=heroes narrative. I work to break down the "common sense" narrative of the soldier as hero, in exactly the same way as any other heritage professional. Hell my own public facing stuff doesn't even discuss COs as heroes, it's about humanity. The IWM and even the army museum are pretty good for this stuff to be honest. Omission is quite interesting though isn't it? I wonder if there's a museum somewhere in Britain with a picture of Obama's dad and "brave British soldiers crushed this guys balls between bits of steel!" I guess we'll see for the centenary. The fair-fight, British gentleman colonial administrator-soldier is one hell of a powerful and pervasive argument. It's not in museums, I doubt it's even in the army, but is certainly is there - usually parroted by politicians who couldn't even tell you when the Boer war was, let alone the details of the resettlement camps and the starvation of Boer women and children. So to say that the myth is there and perpetuates the whitewashing of British military failures/escapades/shady poo poo is not controversial, just, well, listen to Boris Johnson on British military history. Intrigued as to your exhibition though, whereabouts is it on?
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May 6, 2016 21:09
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It's a humble Light Infantry musuem located in Bodmin, North East Cornwall which is certainly worth visiting if any goon is down past the Tamar. It is part of the 32nd DCLI's part regimental history with the 46th, in the back room of the 1st floor of the musuem located just to the right of the North West frontier/India stuff. It basically covers the Light Infantry regiments little tour of the Boer War, I don't think they were involved directly with the camps themselves (still need to read the official regimental history book on my shelving) but the display covers the horrible conditions and home press struggling to reveal the light of the Boer women, children and elderly suffering said camps. The stuff mostly on display is scratch built comforts and little items the people of the concentration camp put together out of raw resources sold to guards or admin staff or donated by descendents.
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May 6, 2016 21:15
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That honestly sounds pretty great (well, sad, but you know what I mean). I'm off down dartmoor way for work fairly soon, I'll try and extend the trip over to bodmin too.
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May 6, 2016 21:18
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this is a tangent but I wanted to say that I just started watching Sharpe and now I understand your username, and also now when I read your posts I imagine sweet 90s guitar licks playing in the background
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May 6, 2016 21:19
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lenoon posted:That honestly sounds pretty great (well, sad, but you know what I mean). I'm off down dartmoor way for work fairly soon, I'll try and extend the trip over to bodmin too. If you like guns/every medal under the sun/obscure regimental sports history you'll have fun! Jamwad Hilder posted:this is a tangent but I wanted to say that I just started watching Sharpe and now I understand your username, and also now when I read your posts I imagine sweet 90s guitar licks playing in the background I hope everyone experinces those guitar licks. SeanBeansShako fucked around with this message at 21:28 on May 6, 2016 |
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May 6, 2016 21:25
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You know, despite my particular focus, I really do
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May 6, 2016 21:29
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thatbastardken posted:a) the Palmerston forts were pretty much a sop from parliament to the military industrial complex, not a real response to a threatened invasion No, they weren't a sop to "the military industrial complex", they were a reaction to a perceived strategic threat. Whether they were any drat use is debatable, but not every military construction program of questionable value is because of the loving "military industrial complex" boogeyman.
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May 6, 2016 21:37
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so ea just announced a battlefield game taking place in the first world war. this could either be awesome or bad but im just happy that attention is being paid to that conflict by a big game studio what if the game has a chauchat
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May 6, 2016 21:46
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i'm just hoping with can mash Dreadnaughts together with impunity, just like Kaiser Willhelm would have wanted to do. Also, I feel bad for the dudes who are working on the Verdun game.
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May 6, 2016 21:53
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I figured that a game about verdun should be an incredibly depressing indie about the futility of human existence as an individual in the face of relentless horror, did the FPS turn out good in the end?
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May 6, 2016 21:56
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The best WWI video game would just follow the plot of the Charley's War comics and be as much about surviving the vicissitudes of the military establishment as combat against Germans.
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May 6, 2016 22:07
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lenoon posted:I figured that a game about verdun should be an incredibly depressing indie about the futility of human existence as an individual in the face of relentless horror, did the FPS turn out good in the end? You can grimly machinegun waves of landsers as a Belgian in a top hat.
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May 6, 2016 22:22
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Kanine posted:so ea just announced a battlefield game taking place in the first world war. this could either be awesome or bad but im just happy that attention is being paid to that conflict by a big game studio A video game will never capture 1) The months of sitting in a damp trench with your uniform and toes rotting off of you while your decomposing friends are reinforcing the retaining wall 2) The utterly nihilistic role of chance involved in whether you survive each step of your army's offensive action. It will be just another victim of the Truffaut law.
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May 6, 2016 22:23
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:No, they weren't a sop to "the military industrial complex", they were a reaction to a perceived strategic threat. Whether they were any drat use is debatable, but not every military construction program of questionable value is because of the loving "military industrial complex" boogeyman. Settle down Lord Palmerston, noone is coming for your fortification budget now.
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May 6, 2016 22:46
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steinrokkan posted:A video game will never capture Also the game is happening in an alternative history, so it's all gonna be steampunk and (I'm guessing here) tight corsets and walking Ironclads
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May 6, 2016 22:48
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