|
Mister Adequate posted:Levellers were extremely cool & good Levellers, Diggers, Ranters all amazing. The Putney debates are one of the stand out moments in the history of Britain, but tend to get forgotten really easily (hmmmm I wonder why....)
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 08:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 05:16 |
|
|
Easily forgotten because they were all terrible.
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 08:38
|
|
|
Universal (male only) franchise? The dissolution of the power of the Lords and King? Set term parliaments? Abolition of Conscription? Religious tolerance? Equality under the Law? Seems like the Levellers had it right on the money.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 08:57
|
|
|
lenoon posted:Universal (male only) franchise? The dissolution of the power of the Lords and King? Set term parliaments? Abolition of Conscription? Religious tolerance? Equality under the Law? Why do you hate the Suffragettes 
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 09:33
|
|
|
Obviously that would be better but these are still pretty radical proposals
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 09:56
|
|
|
the putney debates own the hussites were ok, and they gave rise to the bohemian brethren who were also ok the dudes in muenster in the 1500s were decidedly not ok
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 11:33
|
|
|
What I like about the Taiping proto-communism is that British observers get really obviously mad at it, but don't yet have the language and ideological framework of capitalist/communist conflict to describe why beyond complaining about "injury to trade."
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 13:41
|
|
|
Awww I missed Paradox chat. Well, I'm posting anyways. HoI IV is like an actually playable, streamlined and polished version of III but as with all Paradox games it needs a few major patches/expansions before it really shines (the current AI seems to subscribe to the "maybe if I stay absolutely still and do nothing those Panzer divisions will stop trying to encircle us wait what do you mean they just pocketed and destroyed 3 million troops and took our capital also lol wtf even is an airplane" school of thought). EUIV is probably the best Paradox game as of this moment in time because it's had years of polish and was solid to begin with, but don't go into it expecting a good early modern war game - 'strategy' consists of taking all your dudes and putting them in a big 100k tall stack then smashing them into the enemy's doomstack and whoever wins that one decisive battle spends the next 10 years chasing down the survivors/besieging all the enemy's land. Also technology and tactics just make your numbers bigger there's no huge change in how combat works over the whole 400 year scale. The exploration, colonization, realm management, everything else is great though. Victoria II is probably my favorite Paradox game but then again it seems like there's only about 27 other people on the planet who actually understand and enjoy it so I guess I'm just weird.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 15:24
|
|
|
hello thread! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxPB76pmWss edit: and this one goes out to all the swedes in the thread, enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l035zavkLGM HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Sep 3, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 16:21
|
|
|
derp.
Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Apr 30, 2017 |
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 17:34
|
|
|
Dear Thread, got three books today and it is all the milhist thread's fault: Fascism: a Very Short Introduction. Next time fascist-chat comes up I should know a bit more - I can see why "what is fascism" promotes argument though, because the book is making the convincing argument that fascism one of those bitchy near-impossible-to-formally-define things like consciousness or humor. It may be one of those times when the short quip like "Fascism is imperialism turned inward" is more useful then all the scholarly rumblings in the world. Shattered Sword: When I'm reading this, I will probably make many posts like "OMG guys, the Imperial Japanese made mistakes", please let me know if this is actually interesting ITT or everybody is all "Yeah, nublet, we know"  The Thirty Years War: Europe's tragedy: I really don't know anything on this subject, so I'm looking forward to reading it. Also looking forward to then mansplaining the 30 Years War to HEYGAL
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 17:42
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:Dear Thread, got three books today and it is all the milhist thread's fault: 
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 17:47
|
|
|
Jobbo_Fett posted:I don't believe they did. The Russians had a bunch of tank and rifle divisions between Paulus and Manstein and the Germans didn't have enough of... anything in the area to change that. Just keeping Stalingrad supplied was costing thw Luftwaffe a lot in transports and escorts. That's mostly bravado right there. The pocketed army was in absolutely no position to advance against any serious defense. Everything coming from the other direction petered out as the Germans and what was left of their Axis allies simply didn't have enough strength to advance. The whole caucasus operation stretched the front line so long that the Axis had a line of Romanian, then Italian, then Hungarian divisions because they simply couldn't spare their own infantry, hoping that a pair of panzer divisions and a understrength Romanian armored division would be able to stem the tide.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 17:51
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:The Thirty Years War: Europe's tragedy: I really don't know anything on this subject, so I'm looking forward to reading it. Also looking forward to then mansplaining the 30 Years War to HEYGAL
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 18:04
|
|
|
Shattered Sword and the crazy self defeating antics of the IJN have been brought up many times in the thread, but if you find something you'd like to talk about go ahead and post man.
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 18:08
|
|
|
Crazycryodude posted:Awww I missed Paradox chat. Well, I'm posting anyways. HoI IV is like an actually playable, streamlined and polished version of III but as with all Paradox games it needs a few major patches/expansions before it really shines (the current AI seems to subscribe to the "maybe if I stay absolutely still and do nothing those Panzer divisions will stop trying to encircle us wait what do you mean they just pocketed and destroyed 3 million troops and took our capital also lol wtf even is an airplane" school of thought). EUIV is probably the best Paradox game as of this moment in time because it's had years of polish and was solid to begin with, but don't go into it expecting a good early modern war game - 'strategy' consists of taking all your dudes and putting them in a big 100k tall stack then smashing them into the enemy's doomstack and whoever wins that one decisive battle spends the next 10 years chasing down the survivors/besieging all the enemy's land. Also technology and tactics just make your numbers bigger there's no huge change in how combat works over the whole 400 year scale. The exploration, colonization, realm management, everything else is great though. Victoria II is probably my favorite Paradox game but then again it seems like there's only about 27 other people on the planet who actually understand and enjoy it so I guess I'm just weird. I remember when Vicky 1 first came out I fired up a game as China. Non-European soldiers had an attack power of 2 and not having a general assigned was a -2 penalty. Since neither side had any default generals coded in I easily put down the Taiping rebellion with zero deaths on either side. I think I'll go grab the Victoria II expansions for $6 and see if it's gotten any harder.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 18:14
|
|
|
Crazycryodude posted:Awww I missed Paradox chat. Well, I'm posting anyways. HoI IV is like an actually playable, streamlined and polished version of III but as with all Paradox games it needs a few major patches/expansions before it really shines (the current AI seems to subscribe to the "maybe if I stay absolutely still and do nothing those Panzer divisions will stop trying to encircle us wait what do you mean they just pocketed and destroyed 3 million troops and took our capital also lol wtf even is an airplane" school of thought). EUIV is probably the best Paradox game as of this moment in time because it's had years of polish and was solid to begin with, but don't go into it expecting a good early modern war game - 'strategy' consists of taking all your dudes and putting them in a big 100k tall stack then smashing them into the enemy's doomstack and whoever wins that one decisive battle spends the next 10 years chasing down the survivors/besieging all the enemy's land. Also technology and tactics just make your numbers bigger there's no huge change in how combat works over the whole 400 year scale. The exploration, colonization, realm management, everything else is great though. Victoria II is probably my favorite Paradox game but then again it seems like there's only about 27 other people on the planet who actually understand and enjoy it so I guess I'm just weird. I've been finding it really easy to encircle people, yeah, which is how I keep swinging wars with 5-8 divisions of volunteers by annihilating multiple times their manpower with virtually no losses. edit: I say this having just finished gobbling up at least fifty or sixty divisions of Japanese soldiers with four T-26 divisions, a motostrelk divisions, and two riflemen who sat in ports because the chinese absolutely refused to protect their potential landing sites. spectralent fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Sep 3, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 18:18
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:hello thread!
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 18:36
|
|
|
Crazycryodude posted:Awww I missed Paradox chat. Well, I'm posting anyways. HoI IV is like an actually playable, streamlined and polished version of III but as with all Paradox games it needs a few major patches/expansions before it really shines (the current AI seems to subscribe to the "maybe if I stay absolutely still and do nothing those Panzer divisions will stop trying to encircle us wait what do you mean they just pocketed and destroyed 3 million troops and took our capital also lol wtf even is an airplane" school of thought). EUIV is probably the best Paradox game as of this moment in time because it's had years of polish and was solid to begin with, but don't go into it expecting a good early modern war game - 'strategy' consists of taking all your dudes and putting them in a big 100k tall stack then smashing them into the enemy's doomstack and whoever wins that one decisive battle spends the next 10 years chasing down the survivors/besieging all the enemy's land. Also technology and tactics just make your numbers bigger there's no huge change in how combat works over the whole 400 year scale. The exploration, colonization, realm management, everything else is great though. Victoria II is probably my favorite Paradox game but then again it seems like there's only about 27 other people on the planet who actually understand and enjoy it so I guess I'm just weird. I'd say EUIV combat has a bit more nuance to it than this but yeah if you're looking for early modern warfare on its own there is no substitute for Pike and Shot.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 18:38
|
|
|
US Netflix just got Our World War. It's a British miniseries about WWI from 2014 with three hour long episodes. The first is about the beginning of the war and Mons, the second about pals battalions and the Somme, the third is about tanks and Amiens. I haven't watched it since 2014, but I'm definitely going to rewatch when I get a chance. From what I remember, it's good. I also remember a lot of really annoying *my immersion!* whining on one of these forums about how they used recent music. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_World_War_(TV_series) Teriyaki Hairpiece fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Sep 3, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 18:53
|
|
|
cheerfullydrab posted:US Netflix just got Our World War. It's a British miniseries about WWI from 2014 with three hour long episodes. The first is about the beginning of the war and Mons, the second about pals battalions and the Somme, the third is about tanks and Amiens. It is pretty good, yeah. The tank one has a crew from Levenshulme which really weirded me out since it's a tiny bit of Manchester that I used to live in myself a few years ago.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 19:13
|
|
|
Panzeh posted:That's mostly bravado right there. The pocketed army was in absolutely no position to advance against any serious defense. Everything coming from the other direction petered out as the Germans and what was left of their Axis allies simply didn't have enough strength to advance. The whole caucasus operation stretched the front line so long that the Axis had a line of Romanian, then Italian, then Hungarian divisions because they simply couldn't spare their own infantry, hoping that a pair of panzer divisions and a understrength Romanian armored division would be able to stem the tide. There was at least one instance of this where the Italians were in between the Romanian and Hungarian divisions because the two refused to work with each other, IIRC
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 19:19
|
|
|
P-Mack posted:I remember when Vicky 1 first came out I fired up a game as China. Non-European soldiers had an attack power of 2 and not having a general assigned was a -2 penalty. Since neither side had any default generals coded in I easily put down the Taiping rebellion with zero deaths on either side. Oh, it's MUCH harder now, you need to wait until you invent machine guns before you can really break the combat AI. So hard. On the flip side, I don't play it for it's wonderful combat AI, I'm much more into the social dynamics, demographics, and complex (as well as occasionally hilariously broken) economy. Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Sep 3, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 19:34
|
|
|
So I have been reading Alistair Horne's To Lose A Battle, a fantastic work and probably the authoritative account of the Fall of France in 1940. In one of his footnotes, Horne asks an interesting question which I think is worthy of further discussion: What if, instead of being immediately thrown into the line in France, the British Army had stood aloof from the direct clash between France and Germany? What if, true to its name, it had reserved the British Expeditionary Force for an expeditionary role? What if, like Wellington in the Peninsula, the British Army had instead chosen to fight its war in secondary theatres of strategic importance? What would be the effect of this in both world wars? The British Army might have dedicated its full weight to Norway in 1940, or against the Ottomans in 1915. The French in 1940 were probably doomed regardless of the contributions of the BEF, but they came so close to disaster in 1914 that removing a few more divisions from their line might lead to a collapse even though the BEF hardly covered itself in glory at the Marne. What are your thoughts?
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 19:41
|
|
|
So humans have ridden horses, camels, and elephants into combat, as well as occasionally using dogs. What other animals have we used for war? What are the traits which make an animal suitable for use in warfare?
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 19:43
|
|
|
EricD posted:So I have been reading Alistair Horne's To Lose A Battle, a fantastic work and probably the authoritative account of the Fall of France in 1940. In one of his footnotes, Horne asks an interesting question which I think is worthy of further discussion: Far from being "doomed regardless" the Germans were cutting it very fine. The Ardennes was a huge gamble, and even though it turned out hugely successful it was an enormous logistical strain (it created what was at the time the world's largest traffic jam, that took 2 weeks to clear). I can't imagine that coming under fire would've ended very well for the Germans. Then there's the other idea: Just don't have the Funny War. The Siegfried line was awful and allowing Germany an entire season to refresh and re-equip undoubtedly helped their attack. Hell, imagine if Britain and France just went to smash Germany in while most of it's troops were slogging through Poland?
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 19:50
|
|
|
spectralent posted:Far from being "doomed regardless" the Germans were cutting it very fine. The Ardennes was a huge gamble, and even though it turned out hugely successful it was an enormous logistical strain (it created what was at the time the world's largest traffic jam, that took 2 weeks to clear). I can't imagine that coming under fire would've ended very well for the Germans. Then there's the other idea: Just don't have the Funny War. The Siegfried line was awful and allowing Germany an entire season to refresh and re-equip undoubtedly helped their attack. Hell, imagine if Britain and France just went to smash Germany in while most of it's troops were slogging through Poland? France was incapable of launching the sort of vigorous, all out offensive that would have been needed to smash Germany while the German Army was in Poland. Its training, doctrine and equipment were all unsuitable for it. It was dedicated to a strategy of defense, hence the Maginot Line. Its experience in the First World War led to invest in a doctrine of always maintaining a continuous front, believing that break-throughs and maneuver were obsolete in the face of modern firepower, as that had been their experience in 1914-1918. Additionally, the vast losses France took in 1914-1918 meant that she had far less manpower in 1939, and so her leaders were extremely cautious about that manpower. They did not want to launch a hasty offensive which would lead to the kind of bloody head-on collisions with the enemy which the French Army suffered in 1914, when France lost 27,000 dead in a single bloody day. Nobody wanted to repeat the Battle of the Frontiers or Verdun. Hence their dedication to fortifications, firepower and a continuous, defensive line. Even though enormous opportunities beckoned the Allies in 1939, even though the Germans had left only a handful of third-rate divisions to guard their western border, even though those divisions only had three days worth of ammo, the French were not prepared in training, equipment or doctrine for the offensive a outrance that could have put an end to Hitler right then and there.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 20:11
|
|
|
unwantedplatypus posted:What other animals have we used for war? Off the top of my head, pidgin guided missiles were a thing tested in WW2 by the Brits, where the bird is trained to act as a sort of organic targeting computer. The US tried something similar with bat bombs, where a number of bats were dropped on Japanese ships and lit on fire, with the idea being they'd seek shelter on the ship. Postwar the UK also had chicken detonated/powered nuclear warhead mines, where the chicken would keep the mine from freezing with its body heat, starve at a predictable rate and that would set off the device. Trained dolphins that did underwater operations were a more recent example. None of these worked particularly well IIRC and never made it out of testing.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 20:16
|
|
|
CoolCab posted:Chicken nukes Somehow, the Blue Peacock was an even crazier idea than how you described it. It's just such a uniquely strange and terrible idea.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 20:27
|
|
unwantedplatypus posted:So humans have ridden horses, camels, and elephants into combat, as well as occasionally using dogs. What other animals have we used for war? What are the traits which make an animal suitable for use in warfare? There's the always famous 'light pigs on fire to scare elephants' thing.
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 20:29
|
|
|
EricD posted:France was incapable of launching the sort of vigorous, all out offensive that would have been needed to smash Germany while the German Army was in Poland. Its training, doctrine and equipment were all unsuitable for it. It was dedicated to a strategy of defense, hence the Maginot Line. Its experience in the First World War led to invest in a doctrine of always maintaining a continuous front, believing that break-throughs and maneuver were obsolete in the face of modern firepower, as that had been their experience in 1914-1918. Additionally, the vast losses France took in 1914-1918 meant that she had far less manpower in 1939, and so her leaders were extremely cautious about that manpower. They did not want to launch a hasty offensive which would lead to the kind of bloody head-on collisions with the enemy which the French Army suffered in 1914, when France lost 27,000 dead in a single bloody day. Nobody wanted to repeat the Battle of the Frontiers or Verdun. Hence their dedication to fortifications, firepower and a continuous, defensive line. Yeah, it's a degree of GBH, but had the war come to Germany instead I doubt Germany's prospects look all that great. Potentially a role for the British, maybe. In any case, France's defeat is certainly only certain because we know it happened like that.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 20:36
|
|
|
unwantedplatypus posted:So humans have ridden horses, camels, and elephants into combat, as well as occasionally using dogs. What other animals have we used for war? What are the traits which make an animal suitable for use in warfare? Not really a direct-combat application, but Giant Pouched Rats are being used in Africa and Cambodia to find mines and other UXO.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 20:38
|
|
|
unwantedplatypus posted:So humans have ridden horses, camels, and elephants into combat, as well as occasionally using dogs. What other animals have we used for war? What are the traits which make an animal suitable for use in warfare? Songhai tried to weaponize a cattle stampede in a battle against Morocco. But the Moroccan cannons scared the cattle into turning around and stampeding the other way so it backfired pretty bad.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 20:42
|
|
|
Thinking about it, I just realised a decent metric for a GBH: Would going back in time to tell someone how it turned out change it? I can't see telling the French they need to focus on the attack going well, and I can't see telling Hitler his crusade to the east is doomed working either, but I can see "The guys coming through the Ardennes aren't the diversion, they're the main force" being something someone might actually act on.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 20:44
|
|
|
cheerfullydrab posted:US Netflix just got Our World War. It's a British miniseries about WWI from 2014 with three hour long episodes. The first is about the beginning of the war and Mons, the second about pals battalions and the Somme, the third is about tanks and Amiens. Oh man I watched that when they had it on Netflix the first time around and it's pretty well done, especially the smug-rear end riflemen 'avin a giggle at the maxim gun.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 20:55
|
|
|
unwantedplatypus posted:So humans have ridden horses, camels, and elephants into combat, as well as occasionally using dogs. What other animals have we used for war? What are the traits which make an animal suitable for use in warfare? The Age of Maximum Cassowary. (Do note the date.)
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 21:10
|
|
cheerfullydrab posted:US Netflix just got Our World War. It's a British miniseries about WWI from 2014 with three hour long episodes. The first is about the beginning of the war and Mons, the second about pals battalions and the Somme, the third is about tanks and Amiens. Only bit I didn't like was the obnoxious shakey cam with the runner, but it is mostly good.
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 21:31
|
|
|
OpenlyEvilJello posted:The Age of Maximum Cassowary. (Do note the date.) But what if they discover more cassowary? How can we be sure this is really maximum cassowary?
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 21:35
|
|
|
CoolCab posted:Off the top of my head, pidgin guided missiles were a thing tested in WW2 by the Brits, where the bird is trained to act as a sort of organic targeting computer. The US tried something similar with bat bombs, where a number of bats were dropped on Japanese ships and lit on fire, with the idea being they'd seek shelter on the ship. Postwar the UK also had chicken detonated/powered nuclear warhead mines, where the chicken would keep the mine from freezing with its body heat, starve at a predictable rate and that would set off the device. Trained dolphins that did underwater operations were a more recent example. Pigeons worked pretty well when Princess Olga demanded a pigeon from each household of a city as tribute, then tied burning hemp to each one and let them return home.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 22:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 05:16 |
|
|
what even is a germany? scientists still don't know
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 22:24
|
|