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feedmegin posted:Now I'm curious what the Greek on the handle says. According to Wikipedia it translates as: In Honours Mathematical, This is the very last of all The Wooden Spoons which you see here; O you who see it, shed a tear. Alternatively: This wooden object is the last souvenir of the competitive examinations in mathematics. Look upon it, and weep.
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Sep 14, 2016 14:53
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How do the Border and Internal Troops of the Russian Federation, and the former Soviet Union work? I had thought that they would be the equivalent of say the CBSA and RCMP, simple border guards and a gendarmerie, but then I was reading an account of the Battle of Berlin that mentioned Border Guard regiments and NVKD Internal Troops. Obviously Berlin is a long way from the Polish border, what were they doing? Are internal troops part of the army? What do border guard regiments do? e: For clarity - What are Border Troops and what do they do? What are Internal Troops and what do they do? What were (are?) the wartime roles of these troops? Frosted Flake fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Sep 14, 2016 |
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Sep 14, 2016 14:54
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What are examples of societies having to get to terms over a prolonged period with the prospect of way-of-life-altering military defeat? I'm really interested in the psychological impact of drawn-out looming defeat, like who just keeps on trucking, who stops giving any fucks, who starts to think about looking good to the conquerors / liberators post-war etc. I read a book on the Whites in the Russian Civil War and the CSA, Imperial Japan, Taiping, Kuomintang, and South Vietnam also seem like they would be candidates off the top of my head. Places outside the West and eras outside the last 200 years would be particularly interesting.
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Sep 14, 2016 15:29
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The Jews for most of their history? The Torah is full of Jews mourning their impending doom for breaking the covenant.
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Sep 14, 2016 16:46
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Frosted Flake posted:How do the Border and Internal Troops of the Russian Federation, and the former Soviet Union work? The RCMP fought abroad too, and the USSR was a hell of a lot more pressed for men that knew how to use a gun than the British Empire during the Boer Wars.
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Sep 14, 2016 16:49
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aphid_licker posted:What are examples of societies having to get to terms over a prolonged period with the prospect of way-of-life-altering military defeat? I'm really interested in the psychological impact of drawn-out looming defeat, like who just keeps on trucking, who stops giving any fucks, who starts to think about looking good to the conquerors / liberators post-war etc. I read a book on the Whites in the Russian Civil War and the CSA, Imperial Japan, Taiping, Kuomintang, and South Vietnam also seem like they would be candidates off the top of my head. Native North Americans might cover what you are looking for, a lot of tribes fought for the French in the Seven Years War then for the British in the American War of Independence, because they knew that being left alone on the continent with the American colonist was going to be bad, bad news for them. After the revolution the various tribes ran the gamut of reactions that you mentioned. The run up to WWI is also interesting in this regard in that France after 1871 was witnessing a unified Germany skyrocket in terms of industrial production and population, while her own productivity and birth rate dwindled, leading to calls from the generals that they had to go to war with Germany now or it would be too late in the future. Meanwhile Germany has pretty much the same view about Russia and is abjectly terrified of her massive population and rapid modernisation, leading to calls that Germany would never get a better chance to take out Russia on favourable terms (obviously Russiaturned out to be a paper tiger, but pretty much all of Europe was united in thinking Russia could steamroll the rest of the continent if she wanted).
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Sep 14, 2016 17:13
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Ataxerxes posted:I think that that spoon thing was an Oxford or Cambridge tradition, the one who passed the annual final exams with the lowest still passing grade was given a spoon by other students. It stopped at some point when the spoons got stupidly big and the faculty thought they were dangerous. Yep. Mathematics exams were competitive, and the lowest pass was rewarded with a wooden spoon. The opposite handle is a rowing blade and you can still be rewarded with a wooden spoon for losing all of the 4 days of racing in Oxford and Cambridge's college races (and rewarded with an oar for winning them).
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Sep 14, 2016 17:37
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My favorite story of defeat and its aftermath are the memoirs of Wrangel. He writes in such a no-nonsense businesslike way about everything it has this cumulative effect of thinking "this guy has a good head on his shoulders". It's total propaganda of course but I enjoyed them a lot.
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Sep 14, 2016 17:56
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MikeCrotch posted:obviously Russia turned out to be a paper tiger, but pretty much all of Europe was united in thinking Russia could steamroll the rest of the continent if she wanted). Not THAT obvious actually, look at European history from 1941 to 1990...
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Sep 14, 2016 18:41
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I'll be travelling through Portugal, northern Spain and southern France the next couple of months. Are there any cool milhist museums/locations that you guys know of?
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Sep 14, 2016 19:12
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feedmegin posted:Not THAT obvious actually, look at European history from 1941 to 1990... Last time I checked the Warsaw Pact wasn't run by Tsar Nicholas II (and his partners in crime the Tsarist Russian officer corps)
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Sep 14, 2016 19:36
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MikeCrotch posted:Last time I checked the Warsaw Pact wasn't run by Tsar Nicholas II (and his partners in crime the Tsarist Russian officer corps) That's what they wanted you to think 
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Sep 14, 2016 19:38
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MikeCrotch posted:Last time I checked the Warsaw Pact wasn't run by Tsar Nicholas II (and his partners in crime the Tsarist Russian officer corps) Actually quite a few of the latter were involved with the early Soviet army.
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Sep 14, 2016 21:12
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Cyrano4747 posted:That's what they wanted you to think 
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Sep 14, 2016 22:20
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WW1 tank takes over Trafalgar Square for 100th anniversary. Can't wait to read more about this.
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Sep 15, 2016 09:29
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Frosted Flake posted:What are Internal Troops and what do they do? I don't know about the border troops, but the VV was the ministry of internal security's military arm, used for places where using the Red Army would look bad - against Russian citizens. Primary duties were full-scale riot suppression, anti-guerilla actions in rebellious areas, and defending fortified urban areas in wartime. I don't know if it still exists in the RF, but you can bet your rear end they have something similar.
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Sep 15, 2016 09:41
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Tias posted:I don't know about the border troops, but the VV was the ministry of internal security's military arm, used for places where using the Red Army would look bad - against Russian citizens. Primary duties were full-scale riot suppression, anti-guerilla actions in rebellious areas, and defending fortified urban areas in wartime. I don't know if it still exists in the RF, but you can bet your rear end they have something similar. The MVD RF still exists, and fought in Chechnya and Dagestan. Edit: Except this year they were made a part of the new National Guard of Russia.
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Sep 15, 2016 10:31
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JcDent posted:Polish army museum! The inside is overwhelming (I don't think I'm capable of giving a poo poo about bolt-action rifles anymore) and confusingly laid, snd not much in the way of English text. A poo poo ton of gear dating abck to X century, more armor and uniforms and guns than you can shake a pike at. Would recommend. Nice stuff right there!
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Sep 15, 2016 10:36
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JcDent posted:Polish army museum! The inside is overwhelming (I don't think I'm capable of giving a poo poo about bolt-action rifles anymore) and confusingly laid, snd not much in the way of English text. A poo poo ton of gear dating abck to X century, more armor and uniforms and guns than you can shake a pike at. Would recommend. really cool pics!
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Sep 15, 2016 11:54
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I noticed in those Polish museum pics there was a display on the Enigma. Did you know that the NSA National Cryptography Museum near Baltimore has two Enigma machines....that you can use? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBNc-lpJXU That's me encrypting my first name. You have to press the keys really hard because each press spins a rotor as well. There's no way to type quickly even if you wanted to.
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Sep 15, 2016 14:46
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Hogge Wild posted:really cool pics! Awww, not a single one on the uniforms?
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Sep 15, 2016 14:51
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Also in the post I made in another thread about the Enigma, I found a great story from a 19-year-old girl who was one of the codebreakers, Mavis Lever: quote:The one snag with Enigma of course is the fact that if you press A, you can get every other letter but A. I picked up this message and—one was so used to looking at things and making instant decisions—I thought: 'Something's gone. What has this chap done? There is not a single L in this message.'
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Sep 15, 2016 15:03
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How did WW2 armies decide who should fight in tanks?
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Sep 15, 2016 19:43
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Baron Porkface posted:How did WW2 armies decide who should fight in tanks? People who owned cars. In 1940's Europe that's a quite small proportion of the population, getting to vanishingly small the further east you go. A core role of a tank crewman is maintenance, their first preference went to people who'd laid hands on an engine before.
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Sep 15, 2016 19:48
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Also short people. Because there's not much space in a tank.
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Sep 15, 2016 19:53
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And the people who lived near a tank unit's home garrison were more likely to serve their conscription there.
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Sep 15, 2016 20:11
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I think generally there were also some number of volunteers, since your chances were probably better than if you were conscripted into infantry.
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Sep 15, 2016 20:16
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Baron Porkface posted:How did WW2 armies decide who should fight in tanks? The Finnish tank forces had, according to Reino Lehväslaiho who served there (in his memoirs titled "Sotkalla sodassa" (in the war with Sotka(a nickname for a T-34), assigned people there pretty much randomly. Lehväslaiho had served as a volunteer in the Winter War (since he wasn't old enough to have been called into service by the time it started). He got sent into the Tank Regiment (as it was called then) to do his national service and ended up serving there for the rest of the war.
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Sep 15, 2016 20:37
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Baron Porkface posted:How did WW2 armies decide who should fight in tanks? People familiar with technology in their civilian life: drivers, mechanics, etc. Also cavalrymen, since the breakthrough exploitation tactics were similar. As for loaders, literally anyone beefy enough to move around heavy things for a long time.
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Sep 15, 2016 20:39
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 That uniform feels like some 19th century chic. Actual subject and date: Eric Shinseki, 1965
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Sep 15, 2016 20:57
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
PittTheElder posted:
Old uniforms never die, the men wearing them just get weirder.
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Sep 15, 2016 21:09
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PittTheElder posted:
That poo poo's still around. Here's a considerably more recent photo of the exact same outfit. 
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Sep 15, 2016 21:26
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black plumes are extremely my poo poo
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Sep 15, 2016 21:29
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HEY GAL posted:black plumes are extremely my poo poo I think those are marching band uniforms.  I was in my high school's marching band and we had white plumes for the rank and file, black plumes for the section leaders.
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Sep 15, 2016 21:32
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Cythereal posted:I think those are marching band uniforms.
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Sep 15, 2016 21:34
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Ensign Expendable posted:People familiar with technology in their civilian life: drivers, mechanics, etc. Also cavalrymen, since the breakthrough exploitation tactics were similar. Yeah, soviet tank forces were largely city dwellers, weren't they?
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Sep 15, 2016 21:45
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HEY GAL posted:those are west point uniforms, my friend ... You're not joking, are you. This does not enhance my respect for America's armed forces.
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Sep 15, 2016 21:46
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Why don't their chin straps, actually go under their chins?
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Sep 15, 2016 21:58
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Cythereal posted:I think those are marching band uniforms. Plumes, pom poms and feathers are all vital elements of a good early to mid 19th century uniform.
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Sep 15, 2016 22:01
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SeanBeansShako posted:Plumes, pom poms and feathers are all vital elements of a good early to mid 19th century uniform. And most marching band uniforms invoke the imagery of those uniforms. Bonus points for sashes and those strappy things across the chest, which my high school's band had on our uniforms. We were in dark green, black, silver trim, and white plumes for line members and black plumes for the section leaders.
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Sep 15, 2016 22:04
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