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Hunt11 posted:I know that, it is just that my point was that the Union whilst in a lot stronger position then the Confederacy, it was no where near strong enough to have the major super powers actively join in the war effort. I don't know, in '64 the Union army was the best and biggest army in the world by a very substantial margin with about 700,000 men under arms and a field army strength of about ~400,000. In '67 the total strength of the French army was about 620,000, and they were able to deploy a mere 6% of total force to Mexico. You really think they're going to take North American adventurism in the US and A more seriously? I think the Austrians and Prussians would be very pleased in that case. The British army was still all-volunteer/coerced. In '61, the Army had about 220,000 soldiers under arms. To deploy 25,000 troops to Crimea was a herculean effort that left the Home Islands dramatically undermanned. So we are talking about a deployment of roughly 65,000 troops under arms, which is maybe 10% of Union forces? It's not insignificant, but I don't think it's outcome-changing. Now, I think the RN and the French navy could probably institute a pretty effective blockade of the United States, which would potentially have a pretty large impact on the war, but I think that the North was fairly resource-sufficient at the time, so access to overseas market is less important to the Union than the Confederacy. I suppose if you take the line of argument that a) the Confederates win at Gettysburg or at least have enough of a string of victories early to persuade the British and French that the cause isn't doomed and b) this isn't sufficient to force peace with the Union anyway and b) the British and French decide to intervene for ~reasons~ and c) the British and French decide to deploy substantial forces to aid the Confederates and d) opportunism by AH and Prussia don't occur to knock France out of it / drag the world in to Queen Anne's War II: Now With Rifled Muskets then it's possible that foreign powers could have a decisive effect on the war.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:10
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Hunt11 posted:I know that, it is just that my point was that the Union whilst in a lot stronger position then the Confederacy, it was no where near strong enough to have the major super powers actively join in the war effort. Yes it was. The Union was something like 97% of the economy/industrial capacity of the United States and had the largest field army in the world. I don't know how large the French army was in the 1860s, but if you use the Mexican intervention as a measuring stick for how many troops they could reasonably deploy, you're talking about ~40,000 men. The British army in the 1860s was around 200,000 and they're not going to be able to commit all of that to the actual fighting either. I suppose you could assume they could contribute as much as the French did in Mexico. So really you're talking about another 80,000 men, or maybe we'll be super generous and say 100,000, to the Confederate cause. 100,000 more men that the South needs to help feed and supply, which is something they could barely even do for their own troops. Maybe European troops leads to some bloodier battles but it's hardly an existential threat to the Union, especially since I'd imagine a significant portion of the British and French troops would be used to defend their North American holdings vs actively being involved in the battlefield. Britain and France joining the war may have had an economic impact on the Union, and maybe their navy isn't quite so effective at blockading the South, but I doubt they change the outcome. I'd imagine that Austria, Russia, and Prussia would also have loved to exploit the fact that the British and French decided to intervene in America.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:11
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Re sawblade bayos: I am incredibly skeptical of the story that having one was a quick ticket to being killed as a POW. First off they were utility objects frequently used by engineers, especially people who had to deal with wire a bunch. Iirc a lot of armies also issued one for every few dozen men for general trench line housekeeping. These aren't mysterious diabolical things that no use is going to understand or be familiar with. Second men at war would be well aware of the stuff that DID indicate the guy you captured was into killing people like you. Strings of ears, bags of teeth, belts festooned with buttons from dead guys uniforms, all these say "kill me" a lot more than a piece of standard issue gear. Third it just has the general air of a military just so story. It hints at a level of barbarity and general hosed upness without actually being gruesome. I could see this being the kind of thing grandpa trotted out to amaze the grandkids without talking about that time he watched everyone he knew growing up die horribly. It also has that morbid "this is brutal" edge that swirls around both milsurp and milhist at the hobbiest level I could also see it being a misunderstanding of something else. Maybe guys in first waves were told to just kill any enemy engineers they captured and "has an engineers bayo" was a easy proxy. Not wanting to leave valuable specialists in a position where they could escape or be retaken in the chaos of an unstable trench line makes more sense than "that guys knife is so scary looking people who are used to seeing friends blown apart on the regular think it's that one step too far." There is a lot of conjecture there on my part but I think it gets around the edges of why I'm so skeptical about it. Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Jul 18, 2016 |
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Jul 18, 2016 15:12
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Hunt11 posted:I know that, it is just that my point was that the Union whilst in a lot stronger position then the Confederacy, it was no where near strong enough to have the major super powers actively join in the war effort. Do you think France and Britain would intervene on a total war footing or something? Why would Russia, Austria-Hungary, or Prussia allow that?
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Jul 18, 2016 15:14
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One of the most brutal things to read about is any good account of Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne's invasion of New York where more armed colonial militia magically appear out of thin air than anyone could possibly imagine, and he just keeps going for some idiotic reason.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:16
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Panzeh posted:Yeah, there were a lot of problems with a potential European intervention in the ACW from the US threatening Caribbean and other colonial possessions to the possibility of the US making common cause with Russia and turning it into a European war. Yeah people tend to forget that the Tsar Alexander supported Lincoln and did a lot to keep the other powers at bay during that time. Although they recently lost the Crimean War they could still being a lot of trouble to France and Uk
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Jul 18, 2016 15:17
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Jamwad Hilder posted:British and French troops would be used to defend their North American holdings I really don't think France would have been that fussed about Saint Pierre and Miquelon 
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Jul 18, 2016 15:19
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feedmegin posted:I really don't think France would have been that fussed about Saint Pierre and Miquelon however they gave a poo poo about the Caribbean, which is assuredly part of North America.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:21
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Jamwad Hilder posted:Yes it was. The Union was something like 97% of the economy/industrial capacity of the United States and had the largest field army in the world. I don't know how large the French army was in the 1860s, but if you use the Mexican intervention as a measuring stick for how many troops they could reasonably deploy, you're talking about ~40,000 men. The British army in the 1860s was around 200,000 and they're not going to be able to commit all of that to the actual fighting either. I suppose you could assume they could contribute as much as the French did in Mexico. I think you're unwisely ignoring the political situation though. Support for the war was not exactly enthusiastic in the North, and such a change might well tip the tide towards a settlement.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:23
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feedmegin posted:I really don't think France would have been that fussed about Saint Pierre and Miquelon France was embroiled in its Mexican adventure at the time, plus it's Caribbean possessions.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:26
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Fangz posted:I think you're unwisely ignoring the political situation though. Support for the war was not exactly enthusiastic in the North, and such a change might well tip the tide towards a settlement. Or a declaration of war by foreign powers would galvanize support for the war effort.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:27
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:however they gave a poo poo about the Caribbean, which is assuredly part of North America. I don't see the US organising a successful invasion of random British or French possessions in the middle of the ocean when, y'know, they'd be up against the #1 and #2 navies of the world at that time. I agree that I don't see Britain and France successfully going all total war on the US in this scenario, but c'mon, a little less USA #1.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:28
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Spacewolf posted:On a (NATO) naval vessel, is the staff system (as seen in the S1/S2/S3/S4/etc staffs in ground units at battalion level, for example) even used? I'm thinking of a vessel as large as a carrier, but the question works equally well for smaller vessels like cruisers, frigates, and destroyers. (Subs have such small crews I'm doubtful my question would make the least bit of sense.) It might help if you could clarify the question a bit. Ships (even submarines) have a whole supply department. Intel and operations are pretty much one and the same on a single ship where ops can see exactly what intel sees from sensor fusion (this might be a little different with carriers). Try something more specific like "who is in charge of x on a ship?" A lot of what I see at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_(military)#Continental_staff_system doesn't translate exactly to how it would work on a ship (which I guess was your original question, I just don't have a general answer). I guess the short answer is no, ships don't use the same system.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:31
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feedmegin posted:I don't see the US organising a successful invasion of random British or French possessions in the middle of the ocean when, y'know, they'd be up against the #1 and #2 navies of the world at that time. I agree that I don't see Britain and France successfully going all total war on the US in this scenario, but c'mon, a little less USA #1. I don't see it either but it's not like you don't garrison those possessions. You would have to divert some resources to guard against the possibility and to protect your commerce lanes. Is this significant in the overall scenario? Probably not, but it's another factor in why France can't just plop 200,000 troops down in Virginia in 1861.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:33
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hogmartin posted:It might help if you could clarify the question a bit. Ships (even submarines) have a whole supply department. Intel and operations are pretty much one and the same on a single ship where ops can see exactly what intel sees from sensor fusion (this might be a little different with carriers). Try something more specific like "who is in charge of x on a ship?" A lot of what I see at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_(military)#Continental_staff_system doesn't translate exactly to how it would work on a ship (which I guess was your original question, I just don't have a general answer). You kinda nailed it, I was like "How does that wiki article translate to ships?"
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Jul 18, 2016 15:39
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Fangz posted:I think you're unwisely ignoring the political situation though. Support for the war was not exactly enthusiastic in the North, and such a change might well tip the tide towards a settlement. The opposite would be far, far more likely, considering it would change the narrative of the war from "Let's fight fellow Americans because reasons (admittedly pretty good and valid reasons)" to "Holy poo poo, foreign invaders!"
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Jul 18, 2016 15:39
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I don't see it either but it's not like you don't garrison those possessions. You would have to divert some resources to guard against the possibility and to protect your commerce lanes. Is this significant in the overall scenario? Probably not, but it's another factor in why France can't just plop 200,000 troops down in Virginia in 1861. Some ships, sure, but Britain and France have lots of those to go around. For troops you can stick a few hundred ageing reservists there because the US is in no position to invade with anything more than a blockade runner. It'd be like saying you have to garrison New York or San Francisco with a bunch of troops in 1970 in case the Soviet Union attacks them.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:40
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feedmegin posted:I don't see the US organising a successful invasion of random British or French possessions in the middle of the ocean when, y'know, they'd be up against the #1 and #2 navies of the world at that time. I agree that I don't see Britain and France successfully going all total war on the US in this scenario, but c'mon, a little less USA #1. Oh sure, I wasn't saying that. My point was simply that any troops they could commit to North America weren't all going to make it to the battlefields in the South. Like, take Canada as an example. If the British Empire declares war on the Union, then they almost certainly have to deploy some troops to protect Canada, wouldn't you agree?
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Jul 18, 2016 15:41
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Spacewolf posted:You kinda nailed it, I was like "How does that wiki article translate to ships?" This will probably answer your original question: http://fas.org/man/dod-101/navy/unit/department.htm
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Jul 18, 2016 15:43
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Jamwad Hilder posted:Oh sure, I wasn't saying that. My point was simply that any troops they could commit to North America weren't all going to make it to the battlefields in the South. Like, take Canada as an example. If the British Empire declares war on the Union, they almost certainly have to deploy some troops to protect Canada, wouldn't you agree? Absolutely, which is why I was being all when the claim was being extended to France. Land borders are a different matter. Of course, this goes both ways - the Union now needs to garrison its northern border lest it end up in a two front war. Just ask the Germans how much fun those are.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:43
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Do you think France and Britain would intervene on a total war footing or something? Why would Russia, Austria-Hungary, or Prussia allow that? Too bad the League of Three Emperors wasn't a thing yet, they would run a train on France really bad and probably mess up with the UK continental interests badly.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:47
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feedmegin posted:Land borders are a different matter. Of course, this goes both ways - the Union now needs to garrison its northern border lest it end up in a two front war. Just ask the Germans how much fun those are. Which the Union had the manpower and resources to do, especially if we accept that the British don't really have the ability to put a significant amount of troops in North America without going on a total war footing. That being said, diverting even 10-15% of the Union army from battlefields in the south to garrison duty on the border with Canada does theoretically help the confederacy, I'm just skeptical about whether it tips the balance at all.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:53
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my dad posted:The opposite would be far, far more likely, considering it would change the narrative of the war from "Let's fight fellow Americans because reasons (admittedly pretty good and valid reasons)" to "Holy poo poo, foreign invaders!" I dunno, there might be a short term increase in jingoistic pride, but with the prospect of blockades and a war that might drag on indefinitely, war weariness will probably build rapidly.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:59
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We need a palette cleanser from this gay black Lincoln nonsense. I present to you, tankchat courtesy of GiP.
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Jul 18, 2016 16:02
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Fangz posted:I dunno, there might be a short term increase in jingoistic pride, but with the prospect of blockades and a war that might drag on indefinitely, war weariness will probably build rapidly. People for some reason like to claim that this is a thing but how many wars have been actually ended due to civilian casualties and weariness? Maybe you can make an argument that it was a factor in WWI after four years of constant blockade of a non-self sufficient nation, but the claim of civilians forcing the war to end is oft repeated with little evidence. Germany was bombed to rubble in WWII, as was Japan, and Russia. None of those countries surrendered. Similarly, military collapse forced the Confederacy's surrender, not popular weariness from the very effective blockade and shortages.
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Jul 18, 2016 16:03
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I think the potential impact of UK/France joining in on the Confederate side would be far more in the political sphere than the military sphere. No, I don't think that the European powers would commit enough troops to allow the defeat of the Union. But the additional troops may have been able to prevent a successful siege of Vicksburg (for a time, at least), and may have been able to stop the capture of Atlanta. If Lincoln didn't have those success to point to, along with major powers recognizing the Confederacy, he could have easily lost the 1864 election. With McClellan as president and the UK/France negotiating with the Confederacy, some sort of political/diplomatic settlement isn't unlikely. Of course, peace would not have lasted long. But from a industrial/military angle, I don't think French/UK involvement would have done much more than lengthen the war.
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Jul 18, 2016 16:06
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Cythereal posted:gay Lincoln nonsense Well actually,
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Jul 18, 2016 16:12
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:People for some reason like to claim that this is a thing but how many wars have been actually ended due to civilian casualties and weariness? Maybe you can make an argument that it was a factor in WWI after four years of constant blockade of a non-self sufficient nation, but the claim of civilians forcing the war to end is oft repeated with little evidence. Germany was bombed to rubble in WWII, as was Japan, and Russia. None of those countries surrendered. Similarly, military collapse forced the Confederacy's surrender, not popular weariness from the very effective blockade and shortages. I'd say that wars not ending due to war weariness, if it does happen, is a somewhat modern phenomenon, actually. Historically wars ending in negotiated settlements because 'oh gently caress it it's not going anywhere' is very much the pattern. Consider the 100 Years War, the negotiated ending to the Thirty Years War, the Seven Years War, the War of 1812, Russia suing for peace in WWI... The authorities ultimately decide that trying to attain the goals of the war no longer justify the cost - relatively few wars are ended by one side crushing the other. The cases you point to are atypical because they correspond to wars that were considered existential, and significant proportions of the US population did not consider allowing the independence of the CSA to be an existential threat. I'm not commenting on the idea of strategically causing civilian casualties to force an end to the war because that's not what I'm talking about. Fangz fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Jul 18, 2016 |
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Jul 18, 2016 16:12
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Ainsley McTree posted:Possibly getting outside the scope of milhist here so sorry but I have to ask, while we have you--did you literally have to die in battle to get into valhalla, or were you just sort of in after building up enough warrior points through your deeds? I'd love to elaborate, but the truth is that we just don't have any trustworthy sources confirming one interpretation or the other. The strictures of Valhalla* may not have been a problem, since there are other psychopomp gods and other afterlifes. For instance, Ran the sea witch takes people to her hall if they die at sea, and most other people go to Helviti - Hel's Punishment. However, the notion of Hel's underworld as a punishment and dreary place of torment may have been an invention of the Christian sources who wrote down the stories about them, and so it could have been an okay place, where people who don't die fighting. * To further complicate matters, only the greatest warriors go to Valhalla, and then only half of them - the other half go to Frejas hall Folkvangr, where they will fight for her in another final battle. Anyway, I think someone who was an accomplished warrior in life will make it, regardless of whether they die from violence or not. The Lone Badger posted:You had to die a warrior's death not a straw death. Yes that means your second example gets in and the first doesn't. Can you source any of these claims? I've only heard of Odin the Betrayer in fiction, and as for having to die in battle, it seems only to have been a stricture in the 800-1000s when the tribes were constantly at war.
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Jul 18, 2016 16:18
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Fangz posted:Historically wars ending in negotiated settlements because 'oh gently caress it it's not going anywhere' is very much the pattern. Consider the 100 Years War The HYW ended with England completely ousted from the continent except for Calais and the Valois fully in control of the French crown. That is not war weariness, the French achieved their territorial and political aims.
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Jul 18, 2016 16:33
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The historical Civil War was already long, difficult, and bloody by the standards of the time, and tested the limits of political will for war in the Union. A hypothetical alt-history Civil War where the Union is getting blockaded instead of the Confederacy, British industry is supplying the Confederates while Union grain rots in warehouses, and a two-front war further exacerbates various organizational and leadership issues the Union faced? At the very least, it would have made things much longer, much more difficult, and much bloodier, and therefore tested Union politics all the more. As for the political aspect, unless we're going full gay black Hitler here, any realistic British intervention would have been done for the sake of ending the conflict and mediating an equitable settlement between two separate countries, not forcing the Union to surrender and then letting it get annexed by the CSA, so it wouldn't cause the positive morale effects of an existential war.KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:People for some reason like to claim that this is a thing but how many wars have been actually ended due to civilian casualties and weariness? Maybe you can make an argument that it was a factor in WWI after four years of constant blockade of a non-self sufficient nation, but the claim of civilians forcing the war to end is oft repeated with little evidence. Germany was bombed to rubble in WWII, as was Japan, and Russia. None of those countries surrendered. Similarly, military collapse forced the Confederacy's surrender, not popular weariness from the very effective blockade and shortages. How about Russia in WWI? No, that wasn't solely due to civilian casualties, but it's undeniable that the social, political, and economic stresses of a long and brutal war seriously aggravated the existing issues in the Russian system and heavily contributed to the the breakdown of Russian government. The Union didn't have nearly as many problems as Russia did, but it had its own political weaknesses too, and maintaining endless total war is quite a bit more difficult in 1865 than it was fifty years later.
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Jul 18, 2016 16:36
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:The HYW ended with England completely ousted from the continent except for Calais and the Valois fully in control of the French crown. That is not war weariness, the French achieved their territorial and political aims. Also, a hundred loving years is a lot of weariness.
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Jul 18, 2016 16:37
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The politics of the American Civil War are very different from those of the 20th century fight until death kind of wars. It wasn't a very popular war politically for a long time in the north, and something as simple as an election result could have ended things very abruptly. It wasn't like the northern population needed to be starved into submission or run out of men, long casualty lists and minor inconveniences were almost enough to get the job done from the south perspective. Also just for reference most of the time when historians talk about British or French intervention it is in the context of economic sanctions and brokering a peace on be half of the south, not sending large formations of troops onto American soil.
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Jul 18, 2016 16:40
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cheerfullydrab posted:The wackiest and least likely thing about the scenario I described isn't the steampunk tanks or the Europeans failing to knock the USA out, it's the South having the manpower for that sort of war into the 1870's. Did you know Count Zeppelin was a observer on the union side in ACW? He got his first balloon ride during this time in St. Paul, Minnesota. You know what that means  Nothing, absolutely nothing, you really really need gasoline engines in order to have aircraft. Plus Zeppelin was a dreamer, not an engineer, and so his early ideas were totally half baked of "sky trains of balloons," the Zeppelin would have followed the same timetable it does historically, eat a dick steampunk Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Jul 18, 2016 |
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Jul 18, 2016 16:43
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bewbies posted:Also just for reference most of the time when historians talk about British or French intervention it is in the context of economic sanctions and brokering a peace on be half of the south, not sending large formations of troops onto American soil. In terms of what was actually considered plausible at the time, what in particular would the Union find itself short on in case of foreign intervention? Some particular raw material or product, or just cash due to a lack of exports?
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Jul 18, 2016 16:45
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Nebakenezzer posted:Did you know Count Zeppelin was a observer on the union side in ACW? He got his first balloon ride during this time in St. Paul, Minnesota. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Army_Balloon_Corps But.. but.. the Chief Aeronaut! Yes, gently caress steampunk and anybody who is into it. It's idiotic.
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Jul 18, 2016 16:48
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cheerfullydrab posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Army_Balloon_Corps It's a fun fantasy aesthetic. Arcanum: of Steamwork and Magick Obscura is a cool game, for example. Problems tend to happen when authors forget the "punk" part and that the dapper steamgents and the overlylongandwordiousattributivedescriptorly geardames are supposed to be the villains of the genre. 
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Jul 18, 2016 16:53
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It is hard to say just what would have happened, but I feel like it is important to remember that Lincoln was scared about having the foreign powers start supporting the South. The whole point of the Emancipation Proclamation was to basically say that the war was all about slavery so that foreign support for the south would dry up. I think the biggest impact of foreign intervention (In any significant means as I doubt the French and English would provide much more then naval support) would be to make the Union fight more defensively and not allow Grant to just drown the South in bodies until the South could no longer mount a resistance.
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Jul 18, 2016 16:58
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my dad posted:It's a fun fantasy aesthetic. Arcanum: of Steamwork and Magick Obscura is a cool game, for example. Problems tend to happen when authors forget the "punk" part and that the dapper steamgents and the overlylongandwordiousattributivedescriptorly geardames are supposed to be the villains of the genre. I only hate it because I hate the British Empire and American fetishization of British anything and usually steampunk people who are down with steampunk are very down with those things.
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Jul 18, 2016 17:00
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my dad posted:In terms of what was actually considered plausible at the time, what in particular would the Union find itself short on in case of foreign intervention? Some particular raw material or product, or just cash due to a lack of exports? Exports of manufactured goods actually weren't a big deal, there was something of a trade war between the two sides when the US raised tariffs early on in order to help pay for the war. That's why transatlantic trade on manufactured goods drop so sharply. the big deal would have been the importing of raw materials into northern ports . The north was totally reliant on imports of things like sugar and rubber and coffee which just so happened to be imported predominantly from British and French colonial holdings. you can kind of see the consequences and what happened to Baltimore from its partial blockade early in the war, the effect was pretty crippling
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Jul 18, 2016 17:00
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