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Endman posted:Consider me educated on why reducing fortifications is so critical. Of course, if you could do so next time without the snide comment at the beginning, that would be even better. sorry, I thought the comment about wife-loving was a signal that you were up for a little gentle ribbing
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Aug 15, 2016 03:23
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I'm still disappointed that painting fake doors on your star fort isn't a valid cunning ruse after all. More like thirty years bore.
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Aug 15, 2016 04:09
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago Flora Sandes is back! 
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Aug 15, 2016 04:20
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Arquinsiel posted:A lot of WWII combat situations are the result of a weird balance in tech where things like this are possible but would now just not happen due to our ability to simply blow the poo poo out of them with a single flyover. Thanks to a mix of reinforced concrrte and urbanization, the cities themselves have become semi-fortified positions in ways they weren't in the past. You can see it now in Aleppo, but there are earlier examples like Stalingrad or Sarajevo.
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Aug 15, 2016 04:23
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Grand Prize Winner posted:So which one is it? I legit can't tell. 1915, it is a Barthas anecdote. In fairness, he did acquire it from a dead German, it's not like he paid for them. Heck, he wasn't even the guy who looted them in the first place.
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Aug 15, 2016 04:26
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Thanks to a mix of reinforced concrrte and urbanization, the cities themselves have become semi-fortified positions in ways they weren't in the past. You can see it now in Aleppo, but there are earlier examples like Stalingrad or Sarajevo.
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Aug 15, 2016 04:45
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Make the hill your castle! Something something Verdun
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Aug 15, 2016 05:19
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Is there any solid exploration of why the Wehrmacht got bogged down in urban warfare within Stalingrad? Contrary to the case of a star fort, it seems like organizing a major offensive through the city would have been extremely difficult, and that it would have made more sense for the German forces to just ignore what was within the city limits itself. Was it just a case of Hitler wanting to destroy the city that had Stalin's name on it, or was there some real military purpose for the prolonged fighting there?
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Aug 15, 2016 05:24
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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There were a bunch of factories churning out tanks, for one. Urban combat is very interesting, especially when you look at the well oiled machine that Soviet urban assault groups became in 1945.
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Aug 15, 2016 05:50
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Ensign Expendable posted:There were a bunch of factories churning out tanks, for one.  about Soviet urban tactics. We've heard about landsknecht shooting pistols out of windows, now let's hear about Red Army shooting grenades into windows.
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Aug 15, 2016 07:26
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WW2 Data Today's update is interesting due to what rounds it covers. The update goes over projectiles from the 37 to 47 mm range, but some are for lesser known guns, or don't match any guns that I could find in Italian production, and I have to make some educated guesses. Pardon any errors on my part. Firstly, we see two rounds labelled 37/40mm. This means its a 37mm caliber, with 40 calibre lengths for the barrel (1480mm in length). The only thing I could find for that would be the up-gunned Fiat 3000 (Commonly known as the L5/30) and the M11/39. I imagine the guns used on both tanks are the same. The next round in terms of calibre is the 37/45mm. I'm not sure if this is a legitimate typo in my manual or not, as I cannot find any info on a 37/45mm gun, but there is a 37/54mm. The projectiles description lists it being for the 37/45mm AT gun, which the 37/54mm gun was also used for. You be the judge  Note that this entry also had "Kilograms" listed for the "Length" of the round, and the next projectile IS a 37/54mm round so, again, your guess is as good as mine.Next up is a 40/39mm projectile. This one's interesting because the only thing I could find listed with those sizes is the QF2 Pom-Pom gun, built by the British. Evidently, these would've been acquired before the start of hostilities. The last group of projectiles is the 47/32mm variety. Thankfully, this one is much more common, as you can find it on all the Italian medium tanks save the previously mentioned M11/39, and the Semovente 47/32.
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Aug 15, 2016 09:08
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OwlFancier posted:I didn't think we had any actual star forts over here, I know some of the castles were updated, the Tower of London is surprisingly modern in its outer works and Stirling Castle shows some definite gunnery modifications but do we have any actual purpose built star forts? Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight had been updated with glacis etc on the outside in the classic star Fort style - built in the 1590s by an Italian engineer because the custodian was a cousin of the Queen and kept moaning he needed better fortifications to fight the spanish. This however was a fort you could ignore: Even if you had to land on the Isle of Wight (you could probably ignore it and just land on the mainland) it was in the centre of the island, and most the towns etc were on the coast,so could just be raided and plundered by a fleet. Edit: see: the start of a star Fort. 
Nothingtoseehere fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Aug 15, 2016 |
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Aug 15, 2016 09:13
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nothing to seehere posted:Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight had been updated with glacis etc on the outside in the classic star Fort style - built in the 1590s by an Italian engineer because the custodian was a cousin of the Queen and kept moaning he needed better fortifications to fight the spanish. excellent post/username combo
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Aug 15, 2016 09:25
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago  edit: wait a minute, there's another woman sitting behind her. in grey, next to the person with the shoeshine kit. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 10:43 on Aug 15, 2016 |
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Aug 15, 2016 09:28
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sullat posted:1915, it is a Barthas anecdote. In fairness, he did acquire it from a dead German, it's not like he paid for them. Heck, he wasn't even the guy who looted them in the first place.
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Aug 15, 2016 09:30
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Has anyone in this thread ever watched Barry Lyndon? We had a good discussion about it in a Kubrick thread on another forum, which actually got some people to watch the movie, which was amazing. It's got 18th century warfare and guns in spades.
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Aug 15, 2016 09:31
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nothing to seehere posted:Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight had been updated with glacis etc on the outside in the classic star Fort style - built in the 1590s by an Italian engineer... although, i have heard that if you want a wet moat or to flood dudes out or a sump pump, you hire some Dutch or the budget version, a German from the Baltic. edit: imagine the sad life of a guy from the place with the greatest urban density in Europe, very scientifically/technologically advanced, etc, and a pleasant climate to boot, building a modern fortress on the goddamned Isle of Wight. what is there for him to do up there? HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 11:28 on Aug 15, 2016 |
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Aug 15, 2016 09:30
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cheerfullydrab posted:Has anyone in this thread ever watched Barry Lyndon? the outfits are choice, the makeup is correct as far as i remember, the music is Real Cool
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Aug 15, 2016 09:35
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I know this is super-specific and from years ago but did I ever successfully get you to watch The Last Valley?
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Aug 15, 2016 09:41
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cheerfullydrab posted:I know this is super-specific and from years ago but did I ever successfully get you to watch The Last Valley? also, speaking of dudes in a fortification threatening your lines, check this fight out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Alte_Veste https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlacht_an_der_Alten_Veste (the camp is fortified so the principles are similar) GA knows that he can't just not deal with the Imperials, but the part where he actually has to fight dudes sitting behind a nice fortification is the hard bit. so he tries several times to fight a battle in the open field but lol. rip swedes, thought of the frontal assault and died edit: someone should have looked the outcome of this fight the gently caress up right before Noerdlingen, yikes. Also, everyone needs to remember that the guy responsible for the win there was Matthias Gallas, the Heerverderber himself. Not that dumb, just had a tragic career. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 10:05 on Aug 15, 2016 |
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Aug 15, 2016 09:49
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HEY GAL posted:love the movie, disappointed by the battle scenes what was disappointing about the battle scenes? Hogge Wild fucked around with this message at 11:04 on Aug 15, 2016 |
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Aug 15, 2016 10:14
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darthbob88 posted:It was also IIRC threatening the German flank on their drive towards the Caucasus oil fields. And yeah, Seconded! Also, I haven't talked about how Zhuikov was cool for an entire thread now, which means it's time to do so again soon
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Aug 15, 2016 10:58
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OwlFancier posted:I didn't think we had any actual star forts over here, I know some of the castles were updated, the Tower of London is surprisingly modern in its outer works and Stirling Castle shows some definite gunnery modifications but do we have any actual purpose built star forts? You may remember we had a bit of a barney back in the 17th century, when star forts were the in thing. Given they were mostly built with earth not stone they're not necessarily obvious - it's just a funny shaped hill at this point - but there are still quite a few around.
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Aug 15, 2016 11:11
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You know what're really loving great? Castles. The star fort's older, more rugged, significantly cooler and posed-for-maximum-dramatic-effect, sister. None of this piling earth to create something some pikemen are going to bash their heads along while stealing alcohol and consulting astronomic charts for which branch of spit heretical lutherism they're going to follow today. no, sorry, star forts are really cool, as is the 30yw Pick a cool cliff, hill or coastal location, pay some guy called Something de Something, or Bloke of Saint's Name to come along and design a building meant to: 1. Ruthlessly terrorise your own people 2. Kill everyone who comes near to it 3. Stand as a mighty bulwark against rebel forces 4. Inspire 18th century poets 5. Still be used 900 years after construction Castles are great. And where are the best castles in the world? North Wales. Edward the First, wanker king of England, finally settles the Welsh issue by invading, colonising and annexing Gwynedd (and then he went homeward, tae think "that was well done, eh?") in the late 13th century. Realising this is a nation of people who will for centuries gain enjoyment and exhilaration from running head first into packs of guys 2-3 times heavier than them, and possessing both a wicked amount of spearmen and capable of winning any slam poetry competition with naught but a sigh, Edward builds seven of the greatest castles that will ever be built on the planet (in the 13th century) that remain so goddamn perfect in their execution of cutting edge military-political theory that they are now known as a World Heritage site. They're a political statement, an architectural wonder and, more than any battle, contributed to the cementing of English reign over Wales and therefore the greatest tale of injustice by occupation that the world has ever known (700 years and counting provided we ignore the Tudors and various other bits of British history). Welcome to Harlech, my favourite of all the Welsh castles.  It's late 13th century and it is a real beauty of a fortification. Concentric walls, circular towers, a wall leading down to the sea and as if that wasn't loving enough, it's built on a column of rock that is so goddamn perfect for a castle I'd be surprised if Mesolithic hunter gatherers hadn't stopped and quailed at the thought of what would be built there 8,000 years later. edit: But Harlech isn't only a fortification, it's a symbol. Harlech is the seat of Bendigeidfran, a legendary king of the Mabigonion, and the birthplace of Wales' very own Helen of Troy, Branwen fetch Llŷr, the woman who accidentally starts a war so big that it depopulates Ireland and Wales. This is an important place in Welsh oral history, a place of legend and magic, where Bendigeidfran's head is kept (alive and well) for seven years before, for some reason I'll never understand (most likely because the story comes from the post-Roman period, but before the cementing of Wales and England as separate nations), asking to be buried somewhere on Hampstead Heath in London, presumably where he could watch the women's bathing pool. It's so important - and strategic - that placing a huge english castle there is a devastating blow to the tale, and slowly crystallising idea of what it means to be "Welsh" in the 13th century.  Look at the loving gatehouse, the first wall and towers now ruined and turned into the edge of the car park, but underneath that little bridge for tourists is a twenty meter chasm that's slowly been filled over 700 years with soil and stones but when the castle was built would have been a fall onto certain death on jagged slate below. The gatehouse forms it's own keep that could be sealed off at will, so not only are you fighting over a moat, over a curtain wall, over another set of curtain walls, but you've then got a stone keep covered in arrow slits, murder holes, crooked passages and right-angle corridors to try to get into. It's a stylish Tonbridge gatehouse and what we castle nerds call double-d's, a fancy Norman style, but this isn't the namby-pamby Tonbridge style gatehouse you'd see in, well, Tonbridge, this is the huge, thick, brutal gatehouse you need to subdue a rebellious population who want nothing more than to be free   Inside you've got all the mod cons, fireplaces and toilets for all your warmth and making GBS threads needs. It's built as a place Edward, should he need to, can come and visit and stay in, but usually it's going to be handed to a Constable whose job is to defend the castle, if necessary brutalise the surrounding population but on no account consider himself a Marcher Lord or a Baron. The Constable relies on the fact that his house is a goddamn castle and is so intimidating in it's sheer physicality that no two-bit welsh peasant is going to try and overthrow the newly legitimised English reign. The accommodation is pretty great, lots of personal space, as a garrison of less than 40 men is placed in the newly finished castle. 40. The inside of the keep is stylish as all get out, with numerous large picture windows to add that lovely draughty and cold castle feel during the grey and wet Welsh winter, which runs September-July. Not even content with making it look fantastic, the architect has put the only doors into the keep above ground level, and they are small. Really small. You have to stoop to enter, and on the inside there's three holes for that greatest of all door locks, the stout oak bar. No-one is getting into this keep, from either side. Harlech survives the  From the walls now, you can see the sea but it's retreated to a mile or two away. When it was built, the sea would splash against the walls of the seagate, and it was this masterstroke in design that let the castle withstand a lengthy siege. But then even the area around the castle is perfect for defensive operations - when Edward himself comes to relieve the siege he's ambushed and his baggage train is seized and he has to flee back to Conwy. One hundred years later, there's another Welsh rebellion and Harlech is besieged by the Once and Future King of Wales, Owain "the man, the myth, the legend" Glyndwr, he who wanders the Brecons still, until he will return and take Leanne Wood for his bride and usher in the diwedd y byd and the sgwrio saesneg. It stands for four years, the garrison legendarily reduced to "three shields, eight helmets, six lances, ten pairs of gloves, and four guns". It's captured by Owain and turned into his residence, only for another siege, one again so lengthy - this time using cannon as well - that the defenders, rather than give up or give in, literally die of exhaustion. Sixty years later, it's involved in another ludicrous conflict over the fate of Wales, the War of the Roses and there's another incredibly ludicrous siege when it's the very last stronghold held by the Lancastrians in Wales during their their darkest period, and it takes an army of quite possibly 10,000 men to make another tiny garrison surrender, after months of starvation. This is the famous "Men of Harlech" period, a song sung by Englishmen, Welshmen, Scotsmen and Irishmen around the world when they were determined to subjugate tiny nations throughout the 19th century, the irony lost on some. As if that wasn't enough of an awesome history of being a fantastic fortress perched on a rock in the rear end-end of nowhere, it was the absolute last Royalist castle held during Civil War 2: this time it's about Protestantism, and those in charge of "slighting" the castle - making it useless for military purposes - were reportedly so struck by it's form and beauty that they only knocked down the outer walls and some of the battlements. And who owns Harlech now? 700 years of being fought over for the fate of Wales, and it's now been made accessible, visitable and incredibly interesting for a new generation of proud Englishmen to wonder over their King, and a new generation of proud Welshmen and women to wonder at what a people we were to have such castles built over us. And who is responsible? Our good friends that we, as Welsh people, would never betray, leaving us once again wholly in the hands of the English....  Oh gently caress. lenoon fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Aug 15, 2016 |
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Aug 15, 2016 11:23
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yeah, the star fort is cool and good, but nothing looks really badass against a sky that's threatening to rain like a medieval castle
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Aug 15, 2016 11:31
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HEY GAL posted:yeah, the star fort is cool and good, but nothing looks really badass against a sky that's threatening to rain like a medieval castle Definitely true. Sorry about the joke at your guys expense though, they are actually super cool. I wanted to make that post because it's a holiday picture dump, and I'm crazy bored at my desk. edit: and Bendigeidfran isn't really buried on Hampstead Heath, his head (alive and talking until the moment it was buried) is actually under the absolute greatest symbol of Norman repression and appropriation - The Tower of London. lenoon fucked around with this message at 11:38 on Aug 15, 2016 |
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Aug 15, 2016 11:36
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lenoon posted:Definitely true. Sorry about the joke at your guys expense though, they are actually super cool.  edit: although, rodrigo diaz and i were talking a while ago about why wars got so much worse in the 16th and 17th centuries, and i think it's because armies got bigger and wars got longer but the way everyone funded wars and supplied soldiers did not change as fast. if twelve of the guys rodrigo diaz studies decide to do this, nobody who isn't in their direct path cares and the war will end by winter anyway. so Tilly (not that Tilly, another Tilly) was wrong, I think, or at least too simplistic--these guys were trying to make war with ad-hoc methods of revenue raising, and we know what that ended up looking like for the commanding general on the scene--who is also often the biggest political decision-maker in the area--from my and Kemper Boyd's discussion about Baner HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Aug 15, 2016 |
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Aug 15, 2016 11:47
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I visited Chester and Caernarfon last year and they were pretty cool. Much preferred Chester, though, seeing as Caernarfon was full of a bunch of Prince of Wales wank that seemed to be rubbing the conquest of Wales in a bit.
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Aug 15, 2016 12:41
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lenoon posted:You know what're really loving great? Castles. 
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Aug 15, 2016 13:12
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Caernarfon is the fanciest, most palace-like of the north wales castles. It's fantastic, but all style over brutal substance in my opinion. It's definitely the big one to visit though, and incredible in it's own way. Chester is an excellent squat little thing, and had loads of work done to it to keep it relevant as a defensive stronghold until the Jacobite rebellion I think. There's definitely a couple of must-visit castles for the medieval history nerd to go and see in England - Chester among them (those paintings!)
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Aug 15, 2016 13:18
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Star forts just trigger the mathematical side of me so god drat hard. Scientific Warfare, baby. I think a factor that gets underestimated in battles like Stalingrad is that once a battle hits a certain scale it has inertia and ignores sunk cost. Sure, the Germans don't really want to keep pouring guys in to the rubble of the city, but they've already spent thousands of men to get to this point, and if they just get another regiment of rested troops they can take the houses on the other side of the street in the next sector and victory is just SO CLOSE YOU GUYS.
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Aug 15, 2016 13:40
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cheerfullydrab posted:I know this is super-specific and from years ago but did I ever successfully get you to watch The Last Valley? That movie has an epic, brutal fight between Michael Caine and a German accent.
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Aug 15, 2016 13:56
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Is there a useful measure of how much a medieval castle cost in modern terms? Cathedrals too, for that matter. They seem to me like they must've been projects on the order of the Hoover dam or the international space station or something
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Aug 15, 2016 14:05
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lenoon posted:Caernarfon is the fanciest, most palace-like of the north wales castles. It's fantastic, but all style over brutal substance in my opinion. It's definitely the big one to visit though, and incredible in it's own way. Chester is an excellent squat little thing, and had loads of work done to it to keep it relevant as a defensive stronghold until the Jacobite rebellion I think. Honestly, it may be a cliché, but my favourite of the castles I got to visit on my trip to Britannia was Urquhart. But that could just be the fact it lies next to the most beautiful lake in the world.
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Aug 15, 2016 14:16
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bewbies posted:Is there a useful measure of how much a medieval castle cost in modern terms? Cathedrals too, for that matter. They seem to me like they must've been projects on the order of the Hoover dam or the international space station or something https://www.amazon.com/Firearms-Fortifications-Military-Architecture-Sixteenth-Century/dp/0226655342 which is about getting an artist to put one of them things around Siena, which bankrupted them i think KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Star forts just trigger the mathematical side of me so god drat hard. Scientific Warfare, baby.
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Aug 15, 2016 14:19
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago Max Plowman sounds like a cheap porn name. "I'm Max Plowman, did someone order a meat lovers pizza?"
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Aug 15, 2016 14:27
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Star forts just trigger the mathematical side of me so god drat hard. Scientific Warfare, baby. That's also fed by the rather poor intelligence the Germans had regarding Soviet troop strength. There was no way the Soviets still had any reserve after all that they lost, right? (Take three?)
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Aug 15, 2016 14:43
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Hogge Wild posted:what was disappointing about the battle scenes? Well, IMO not enough of them. I did like how they handled the small skirmish and Prussians in that minor siege. Also, the music in that movie is indeed loving ace. Also taught me if you marry into 18th century nobility pack the son of the previous lord off to a school/the colonies ASAP.
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Aug 15, 2016 14:59
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bewbies posted:Is there a useful measure of how much a medieval castle cost in modern terms? Cathedrals too, for that matter. They seem to me like they must've been projects on the order of the Hoover dam or the international space station or something WARNING: TOTAL CRAP BELOW Inflation calculators are terrible this far back, but let's pretend that measuring worth is a) useful and b) accurate: quote:In 2010, the relative value of £8,000 0s 0d from 1300 ranges from £4,938,000.00 to £1,899,000,000.00. As the purchasing power comparison doesn't even touch Wales' last great castle (the £121,000,000 it cost to build the Principality Stadium), let's toss it out and go or the Economic cost of Harlech as a Project, which seems right but I've no idea how the economy works. I don't know how accurate that is in terms of a comparison in economic terms, at all, but the Welsh chain are the ultimate deterrent of the day, so I'll just compare them to the cost of the UK's current military deterrent replacement costs, at (a severe under estimate of) £25 billion for a new batch of world-destroying missiles and the submarines that carry them. Beaumaris cost an astonishing 15,000 and isn't even nearly finished, Caernarfon cost even more at about 25,000 and Conwy around 15,000 as well. So we have a round total for the big four (not the only castles Edward built or extended in north Wales) of about 63,000 at the time. Putting that into measuringworth we get: quote:labour cost of that project is £818,100,000.00 So, let's for no particular reason at all say that it cost £14,960,000,000.00 in today's money to build four castles in North Wales, in order to serve as a military deterrent, a control and a taxable base to control one area of North Wales, support English colonisation efforts and hand over a nice little self contained regional base of power to Edward's son. Cheaper than Trident. Let's just build castles all over our possible future enemies that we'd want to reduce to radioactive dust possibly. And those aren't the only castles in the area! There's at least 450 medieval castles (or remains of them) in Wales. It's a ludicrously over-fortified area. A substantial whack of the income of Wales, England and bits of France was spent on building and rebuilding and loads of castles that were so ridiculously expensive that Edward could barely garrison any of them. It's not even his major war, but kind of a rumbling sideshow/brushfire war to his major aim of fighting lenoon fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Aug 15, 2016 |
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Aug 15, 2016 15:24
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SeanBeansShako posted:Well, IMO not enough of them. Same! It's one of my favourite films. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbBojWrOV2Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPd14JPA--M This one is a bit edited. e: the film isn't just about combat. everyone should watch it! Hogge Wild fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Aug 15, 2016 |
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Aug 15, 2016 15:36
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