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Chump Farts: May 9, 2009; There is no Coordinator but Narduzzi, and Shilique is his Prophet.

Hey all, I'm going for a History MA and in the big leagues now. I'm doing a historiography on how perspectives of the two main armies in WWII changed as time went on and the Russian archives released. My bibliography so far is:
Alan Clark: Barbarossa.
David Glantz's Stalingrad Volume 1.
Michael K Jone:' How the Red Army Triumphed
Heinz Guderian: Panzer Leader
Max Hastings: Inferno
Cornelius Ryan: The Last Battle

I'm ordering Chuikov's "Battle of Stalingrad"
Glantz's Volume 2 for the Stalingrad series
and Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer

Any suggestion on other works to include? I'm thinking Manstein and Halder's accounts, but I'm wondering if "Survivors of Stalingrad" by Reinhold Busch or maybe Liddell's books can help out, too.

Books or primary source thoughts would be extremely helpful.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 05:04

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# ? May 17, 2024 23:03

Polyakov: Mar 22, 2012

Fangz posted:

What was the rationale for that design? I mean nowadays the dreadnought seems terribly obvious.

There was an idea that the way ships would fight was to disable the enemy with a hail of smaller caliber fire then close to short range and sink them with high calibre guns. This didn't go away for a very long time, really until the Japanese showed the Russians up at tshushima with their higher calibre guns. A huge argument raged through the letters page of the Times during Fishers royal naval design reforms about it, after all ships had relied on high numbers of guns for centuries beforehand and people just didn't quite get the advantages of all big gun for a while.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 05:12

Jack2142: Jul 17, 2014; Shitposting in Seattle

HEY GAL posted:

hapsburgs and popes traditionally bury their organs seperately. in the case of the popes, this is done in small jars.

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/apr/07/world/fg-embalmer7

More proof that Christianity is actually just that stupid Egyptian sun god religion.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 05:38

xthetenth: Dec 30, 2012; Mario wasn't sure if this Jeb guy was a good influence on Yoshi.

OwlFancier posted:

Well they were built only a few decades after the actual ironclads were, so the design follows on quite rationally for the same reason. Sloped armour helps deflect rounds and you're never going to get anywhere fast, so you might as well be able to take some hits once you do get there. Casemate guns are fine as long as you're in the battle line and sailing across your target (you are doing that, aren't you?) and are easier to mount that cross-deck turrets, especially with the aforementioned sloped armour.

A dreadnought foregoes the armour layout in favor of a more streamlined hull, more space to mount fully traversing turrets (with really big guns in them), and a bitching new engine which makes them much faster than the pre-dreadnought designs. The effective upshot is that a dreadnought's guns can obliterate the smaller gunned, pre-dreadnought ships from well outside their effective range, and their armour is sufficient to ward off shots from most things other than another dreadnought.

The semi-ironclad designs are based around ironclad thinking which is that you'll be fighting pretty close in with comparatively small guns, so armour against those guns is key, the dreadnought designs assume you're pretty hosed if you get shot by a 12 inch gun so the best idea is to shoot the hell out of the enemy before they get close.

Then of course you get the battlecruisers which are in theory a faster, slightly less armed, much less armoured version of a dreadnought but with naval treaties being what they were, they tended to produce some... pretty crazy designs where shipwrights were trying to cram as much gun and engine into a certain tonnage as they could and gently caress things like "ability to survive a stiff breeze" and "space for the crew to live".

Which also gives you an idea where Britain got its tank doctrine from.

First off, casemates giving way to turrets isn't about cross deck fire, centerline mounts for secondaries in turrets were pretty rare, it's more a concern with the casemates being incredibly wet since they're below the deck, and not actually being worth that much in a fight at top speed. Meanwhile turrets can have better magazine and loading arrangements and even be dual purpose. Next, for quite a while the limit to range on ship guns wasn't ballistic, it was being able to hit. All of a sudden they went from shooting when they thought they were pointed the right way to a centralized director giving the enemy range and the guns being fired when they were pointed the right direction and elevation, and that made ranges increase hugely. The armor on pre-dreads is pretty thick for a blanket assumption of you're hosed as well.

Also the yanks have a pretty decent claim that the turbine engine isn't an essential point of a Dreadnought, but a tradeoff for better speed against range (at least at the start).

The designs with a ton of tumblehome like that are French. The problem with those is in large part they lend to unstable ships, and the angling becomes progressively less useful as ranges start increasing. The later designs when sloped armor starts making a comeback actually slope outwards as the armor goes upwards because that way a more plunging trajectory increases rather than decreases the angle.

xthetenth fucked around with this message at 06:46 on Sep 18, 2016

# ? Sep 18, 2016 06:43

OpenlyEvilJello: Dec 28, 2009

I've always been under the impression that the primary claimed benefit of pronounced tumblehome designs was stability and seakeeping. The idea behind this is that, by making the upper decks narrower, you make them lighter, netting you (1) smaller moments on the roll and (2) higher freeboard for a given weight. The problem is this all falls apart when the ship takes damage. When a ship lists to one side, there is more ship displacing more water on that side and less ship displacing less water on the other side. This creates a force tending to push the ship back upright (the righting moment). With a conventional more or less vertical hull side, the amount of ship submerged on the lower side increases more the more the list increases; with a pronounced tumblehome, the amount of ship submerged increases less as the list increases, meaning the righting moment is much weaker and the ship is more susceptible to capsizing.

Other than that, I basically second everything xthetenth said and would add that I object to the implication that dreadnoughts sacrificed or significantly reduced protection relative to pre-dreadnoughts and that battlecruiser design was chiefly governed by naval treaties (only a handful of ships commonly described as battlecruisers�the Dunkerques, the Alaskas�were designed after the Washington Naval Treaty, and these were only distantly related to Fisher's babies).

# ? Sep 18, 2016 08:17

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

A while back, I mentioned that the US military in WW2 had drawn up plans to deploy chemical weapons en masse against the Japanese Home Islands - the American chemical arsenal being the largest and most sophisticated in the world. It was justifiably pointed out that the article about it I dug up was from a less-than-good source, but I found another article about it from the US Naval Institute as well:

quote:

During the summer of 1945, as millions of U.S. servicemen planned for two massive invasions of Japan and several thousand others were engaged in the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, a handful of Army officers had another plan to end the war.

Major General William N. Porter, chief of the Army's Chemical Warfare Service, orchestrated a scheme to kill an estimated five million Japanese with poison gas. A document kept under wraps for five decades, the 29-page, "A Study of the Possible Use of Toxic Gas in Operation Olympic," details the ultimate attack.

Strategic bombers (B-29s and B-24s) would drop 56,583 tons of poison-gas bombs in the first 15 days of what the document called the "initial gas blitz." And they were to drop another 23,935 tons of gas bombs every month that the war dragged on or until all targets had been hit.

When landings began in November, tactical fighters and attack planes were to drop another 8,971 tons in the first 15 days, followed by 4,984 tons of bombs every 30 days. Other planes would swoop low, using spray tanks to spread thousands of tons of liquid gas over Japanese defenders. During the landings, U.S. troops would bring ashore 67 Army battalions of 105-mm and 155-mm howitzers and 4.2-inch mortars that were to fire about 1,400 tons of gas shells every 30 days.

Against unprotected troops�or civilians�these weapons would have been devastating. Against protected troops they would have caused casualties and, equally important, forced defenders to fight in restrictive gas masks and protective capes. Thus far in the Pacific War, neither side had used chemical weapons.

This proposal was the culmination of more than a year and a half of intensive planning by the Army's Chemical Warfare Service. Senior military leaders first considered the concept in November 1943, after almost 1,000 U.S. Marines were killed taking Tarawa Atoll from determined and fanatical defenders . A month later, General Porter wrote: "The initiative in gas warfare is of the greatest importance. We have an overwhelming advantage [over the Japanese] in the use of gas. Properly used gas could shorten the war in the Pacific and prevent loss of many American lives." 1 The core rationale of U.S. military commanders was simple; they perceived the use of chemical�and also biological�weapons as a way to save lives. And the option remained on their minds as Allied assaults moved closer and closer to the Japanese home islands.

In April 1944, U.S. Army chemical warfare and air intelligence officers prepared "Selected Aerial Objectives for Retaliatory Gas Attack on Japan," highly detailed studies of Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Yawata, and adjacent cities and suburban areas. This analysis examined the climatic conditions, construction characteristics, street layout, and other features of Japanese cities to determine vulnerability to gas attacks.

The secret 1944 report noted, for example, "The gas attack program is aimed primarily at causing the maximum number of casualties, crippling transportation and public services, complicating and delaying the repair of HE [high explosive] bomb damage and making targets more vulnerable to incendiary attack."

Japanese cities were particularly vulnerable to gas attack, notably because residential areas were constructed almost entirely of wood, and "Liquid mustard [gas] is readily absorbed by wood which is almost impractical to decontaminate."

Meanwhile, U.S. forces were pushing relentlessly toward the Japanese home islands, using conventional weapons and methods for amphibious landings on Peleliu, the Marianas, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and, on 1 April 1945, Okinawa. The landings were becoming more costly, however; tenacious Japanese defenders ashore were being aided by kamikaze attacks against U.S. warships and transports.

The U.S. death toll was inciting strong reactions. "You can cook them with Gas," read an editorial headline in The Chicago Tribune on 11 March 1945, as U.S. troops were fighting on Luzon and Iwo Jima with heavy losses. The editorial declared the charge that poison gas "is inhumane" as "both false and irrelevant. ... The use of gas might save the lives of many hundreds of Americans and of some of the Japanese as well."

In May 1945, General Joseph Stilwell, soon to take command of the Tenth Army on Okinawa, wrote to General of the Anny George C. Marshall, Anny Chief of Staff, about the pending invasion of Japan. His suggestions concluded: "Consideration should be given to the use of gas. We are not bound in any way not to use it, and the stigma of using it on the civilian population can be avoided by restricting it to attack on military targets."

On 29 May 1945, General Marshall told Secretary of War Henry Stimson:

... of gas and the possibility of using it in a limited degree, say on the outlying islands where operations were now going on or were about to take place. [Marshall] spoke of the type of gas that might be employed. It did not need to be our newest and most potent�just drench them and sicken them so that the fight would be taken out of them�saturate an area, possibly with mustard, and just stand off. ... The character of the weapon was no less humane than phosphorous [sic] and flame throwers and need not be used against dense populations or civilians-merely against those last pockets of resistance that had to be wiped out but had no other military significance." 2

On 9 June 1945, three officers of the Army's Chemical Warfare Service submitted the ultimate, top-secret gas attack plan to General Porter, who approved it.

The Army planners had chosen 50 "profitable urban and industrial targets," with 25 cities listed as "especially suitable for gas attacks." The report declared, "Gas attacks of the size and intensity recommended on these 250 square miles of urban population ... might easily kill 5,000,000 people and injure that many more."

The use of gas was to begin 15 days before the landings�starting with a drenching of much of Tokyo, because an "attack of this size against an urban city of large population should be used to initiate gas warfare." Planners targeted 17.5 square miles directly north of the Imperial Palace and west of the Sumida River. Almost a million people would be in that area at the time of the first strike. Within two miles of the target area were 776,000 more Japanese; they probably would be in the path of wind-carried gas. (Ironically, the size of the targeted area was almost exactly the same as the area of Tokyo burned out by the B-29 firebombing on the night of 9-10 March 1945. But the chemical warfare planners made no reference to bombing damage to cities on the target list.)

The attack on Tokyo was to begin at 0800, when the greatest number of people would be concentrated in the city. Four-engine B-29 and B-24 bombers would drop either 21 ,680 gas bombs weighing 500 pounds or 5,420 bombs weighing 1,000 pounds, depending upon their availability. All would be filled with a gas known as phosgene.

During subsequent attacks on other Japanese targets�both by U.S. aircraft and artillery�three additional types of gas�hydrogen cyanide, cyanogen chloride, and mustard�were set to be used. (Phosgene and mustard gas had caused many thousands of casualties in World War I.)

Mustard gas would be used against Yawata and the nearby cities of Tobata, Wakamatsu, and Kokura, a highly industrialized area. The objective was to "hamper operations and produce mustard gas vapor casualties" among the 279,200 people in the gas attack zones. "Refresher attacks" would launch every six days until the first frost.

In direct support of the invasion of Kyushu, cyanogen chloride bombs were to be dropped on Japanese troop units around Goshima, the chief city on Kyushu. Raids on reserve troops, however, would likely "produce large numbers of casualties among the unprotected urban population of Kagoshima." Gas attacks, the report continued, "should be coordinated with the 'softening up' bombardment of the beaches prior to landing."

Extremely detailed analyses of city layouts even paid attention to the width of streets and the location of parks. Discussing one gas-attack zone in Yokohama, for example, the report said: "Zone I covers the center of the city proper, a triangular area congested with residential and mercantile structures. This is the most densely populated region in the city. Dense clusters of low residences, broken only by narrow streets, extend inward. The northern and western parts of this district are covered with cheap native shops and theaters. There are no large factories in this zone and comparatively few household shops."

Army planners believed that Japanese officials would not evacuate cities, even after the first wave of poison-gas attacks, because of the strain that mass evacuation would place on the transportation system and because workers were needed to keep factories operating.

Target selection was based on the thesis that "... most Japanese cities of over 100,000 population are located on or very near the coast, a fact of significance for gas attack because it aids identification and exposes them to daily land-sea winds .... There are few open spaces in most Japanese cities. There are a number of parks in Tokyo but few elsewhere ...." Noting that about 70% to 80% of the roofs in typical cities were tiled and the rest sheet metal, the report says that both types "are easily penetrated by gas bombs."

Cities were "studied in considerable detail for the purpose of preparing gas zone maps," depending upon the density of population. The greater the concentration of people, the better the gas target.

Only five copies of the top-secret report of 9 June were made. On 14 June, other documents show, Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, received a secret report on the use of poison gas from General Marshall.

The timing of the discussion between King and Marshall strongly suggests that poison gas was discussed at the 18 June 1945 meeting in the White House on the invasion of Japan. The minutes of that meeting refer to other, undisclosed topics. One was revealed later to be the atomic bomb.

The newly available report of 9 June strongly indicates that another object of discussion at the White House on 14 June was the massive use of poison gas.

On 21 June, according to one of the documents, orders went out to step up production of several poison-gas types so that stockpiles could satisfy the massive amounts urged in the plan.

The Army's Edgewood (Maryland) Arsenal and civilian laboratories already were researching toxic gases extensively, and factories were producing toxic materials as well as weapons. The first poison-gas plant was at Warners in New York state, which opened in April 1944. Initially, it produced 15 tons of cyanogen chloride per day, later increasing to 60 tons per day. By mid-1945 several additional plants were producing toxic gases, and several more remote areas were being used to test them. In 1942 a chemical test area had been set up in the desert wasteland of Utah, including part of the Dugway Valley, and at Fort Sibert in Alabama. Other chemical test sites, with more tropical conditions, were at Bushnell, Florida, and San Jose Island in Panama. Toxic U.S. weapons were also tested on Brook Island in the Australian state of Queensland, as well as at smaller test facilities in Canada and India. (Massive numbers of U.S. toxic weapons were also stored in Australia.)

Weapons intended to destroy tanks, planes, or even buildings could be tested against inanimate objects. But toxic gases were meant for human targets. Thus, volunteers�thousands of U.S. and Australian servicemen�were experimentally exposed. The precise number of men on whom gases were tested may never be known, but the U.S. Navy alone had at least 65,000 test volunteers from the Great Lakes training station near Chicago. 3

The Army and the Navy conducted several research projects, and the Navy had a 1O-by-15-by-17-foot chemical weapon test chamber at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., across the Potomac River from the suburb of Alexandria, a few miles from the Capitol. Several men could be exposed to gases for up to an hour to test the effectiveness of gas as well as protective clothing, masks, and ointments. The volunteers were alternately exposed to the gas wearing ordinary and protective clothing, plus gas masks. Although the volunteers were monitored closely and examined before and after the tests, many suffered injuries. 4 In Australia, volunteers wearing normal clothing and gas masks worked moving sandbags in the gas chambers. Many were hospitalized, often with the skin around the scrotum and underarm burned raw. 5

By 1945, almost 51 million chemical artillery shells, more than 1,000,000 chemical bombs, and more than 100,000 aircraft spray tanks were available. 6 Also in the new arsenal were mustard-gas land mines made from rectangular, one-gallon tin cans, commonly used for varnish or syrup. The ten pounds of mustard in the can were detonated by a slow-burning fuse or electrical current, and the gas would spread over a considerable area. They were intended as booby traps or for contaminating fields, roads, or buildings. By April 1945 more than 43,000 such mines reposed in Pacific stockpiles. 7 Other chemicals were mass-produced but were not used in specific weapons.

This huge U.S. chemical arsenal was intended for a multi-front war, supporting U.S. combat operations in Europe and the Mediterranean as well as the Pacific and Southwest Pacific areas. In 1945, it was proposed, all of this arsenal of toxic gases would be used to drench the Japanese home islands�creating some 5,000,000 Japanese casualties while saving countless U.S. lives.

The exchange between General Marshall and Admiral King on 14 June 1945 addressed the fanatical Japanese resistance being encountered in the Pacific. Marshall's memorandum to King stated: "Gas is the one single weapon hitherto unused which we can have readily available which assuredly can greatly decrease the cost in American lives and should materially shorten the war." 8

Only 50-odd years later has the scope of the plan for that weapon's ultimate use come to light.

1 Memorandum from MGEN William N. Porter to LGEN Joseph McNamey, 17 Dec 1943; War Department file OPD 385.

2 Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, Memorandum of Conversation with GEN Marshall, "Objectives towards Japan and Methods of Concluding the War with Minimum Casualties," 29 May 1945.

3 Rexmond C. Cochrane, "Medical Research in Chemical Warfare" (Aberdeen, MD: Aberdeen Proving Ground, U.S. Army [n .d.; 1946]), Monograph, 163, 167.

4 See, for example, Naval Research Laboratory, "Chamber Tests with Human Subjects, IX. Basic Tests with H Vapor," in Constance M. Pechura and David P. Rail (ed.), Veterans at Risk: The Effects of Mustard Gas and Lewisite (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1993), p. 361.

5 Karen Freeman, "The Unfought Chemical War," The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (December 199 1), p. 32.

6 A detailed breakdown of chemical munitions is provided in Leo P. Brophy, et. al., The Chemical Warfare Service: From Laboratory to Field (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1988), p. 65.

7 Ben R. Baldwin, et. al., Readiness for Gas Warfare in the Theaters of Operations (manuscript in National Archives), pp. 449, 454.

8 Memorandum from GEN Marshall to ADM King, 14 June 1945, enclosing "Memorandum entitled U.S. Chemical Warfare Policy."

Mr. Polmar and Mr. Allen are coauthors of Codename Downfall: The Secret Plan to Invade Japan and Why Truman Used the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995). Their Proceedings article "Invasion Most Costly" (August 1995) won them the Naval Historical Center's Rear Admiral Ernest M. Eller Award.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 15:36

champagne posting: Apr 5, 2006; YOU ARE A BRAIN
IN A BUNKER

Imagine Korea if gas had been on the table.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 15:55

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Chump Farts posted:

Hey all, I'm going for a History MA and in the big leagues now. I'm doing a historiography on how perspectives of the two main armies in WWII changed as time went on and the Russian archives released. My bibliography so far is:
Alan Clark: Barbarossa.
David Glantz's Stalingrad Volume 1.
Michael K Jone:' How the Red Army Triumphed
Heinz Guderian: Panzer Leader
Max Hastings: Inferno
Cornelius Ryan: The Last Battle

I'm ordering Chuikov's "Battle of Stalingrad"
Glantz's Volume 2 for the Stalingrad series
and Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer

Any suggestion on other works to include? I'm thinking Manstein and Halder's accounts, but I'm wondering if "Survivors of Stalingrad" by Reinhold Busch or maybe Liddell's books can help out, too.

Books or primary source thoughts would be extremely helpful.

You're going to want some bartov on that list. He's really important to how thinking about war crimes out easy changed. At least do Eastern Front 1941 - 1945: German Troops and the barbarization of warfare. Pick up Hitlers Army: Soldiers Nazis and War in the Third Reich if you have time although it has a bit of s broader scope. Still a shitload of eastern front as that's where most of the Wehrmacht did most of the fighting.

There is also a history grad student thread in the academia sub forum.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 16:10

Ensign Expendable: Nov 11, 2008; Lager beer is proof that god loves us; Pillbug

OwlFancier posted:

I don't entirely know either, wikipedia isn't very clear which model it's talking about at any given time and the source it links to doesn't work.

Dunno where I got the idea that it was hand cranked from then because it pretty clearly has a baller turret motor.

The English language Wiki entry on the T-34 is garbage. You're better off using any other language + Google translate.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 17:11

Ensign Expendable: Nov 11, 2008; Lager beer is proof that god loves us; Pillbug

Chump Farts posted:

Hey all, I'm going for a History MA and in the big leagues now. I'm doing a historiography on how perspectives of the two main armies in WWII changed as time went on and the Russian archives released. My bibliography so far is:
Alan Clark: Barbarossa.
David Glantz's Stalingrad Volume 1.
Michael K Jone:' How the Red Army Triumphed
Heinz Guderian: Panzer Leader
Max Hastings: Inferno
Cornelius Ryan: The Last Battle

I'm ordering Chuikov's "Battle of Stalingrad"
Glantz's Volume 2 for the Stalingrad series
and Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer

Any suggestion on other works to include? I'm thinking Manstein and Halder's accounts, but I'm wondering if "Survivors of Stalingrad" by Reinhold Busch or maybe Liddell's books can help out, too.

Books or primary source thoughts would be extremely helpful.

I have a bunch of primary documents translated here. They're mostly rivet-counter oriented, but you can probably get some good stuff from certain tags.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 17:13

aphid_licker: Jan 7, 2009

Drawing up plans to gas five million civilians seems like a bit of a

moment.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 17:16

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

That was sort of the second world war in a nutshell for most parties concerned.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 17:17

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Ensign Expendable posted:

The English language Wiki entry on the T-34 is garbage. You're better off using any other language + Google translate.

Anything related to German history is the same way.

So many idiot revision wars in the English version. I gave up five years ago when I stuck something in and a sperg lord who had staked the article out as his e=domain reverted it.

Reason? He used online sources which were more widely available and thus superior to the archival stuff I was reading.

Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Sep 18, 2016

# ? Sep 18, 2016 17:18

Ensign Expendable: Nov 11, 2008; Lager beer is proof that god loves us; Pillbug

I tried to alter the entry for the KV tank once. Not anything important, just their claim that the KV-6 had a flamethrower. It didn't, and I even added a goddamn blueprint as a source, but within minutes the change was reverted and the account was banned.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 17:19

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

xthetenth posted:

First off, casemates giving way to turrets isn't about cross deck fire, centerline mounts for secondaries in turrets were pretty rare, it's more a concern with the casemates being incredibly wet since they're below the deck, and not actually being worth that much in a fight at top speed. Meanwhile turrets can have better magazine and loading arrangements and even be dual purpose. Next, for quite a while the limit to range on ship guns wasn't ballistic, it was being able to hit. All of a sudden they went from shooting when they thought they were pointed the right way to a centralized director giving the enemy range and the guns being fired when they were pointed the right direction and elevation, and that made ranges increase hugely. The armor on pre-dreads is pretty thick for a blanket assumption of you're hosed as well.

Also the yanks have a pretty decent claim that the turbine engine isn't an essential point of a Dreadnought, but a tradeoff for better speed against range (at least at the start).

The designs with a ton of tumblehome like that are French. The problem with those is in large part they lend to unstable ships, and the angling becomes progressively less useful as ranges start increasing. The later designs when sloped armor starts making a comeback actually slope outwards as the armor goes upwards because that way a more plunging trajectory increases rather than decreases the angle.

I would argue that centerline turrets are necessary to build an efficient big-gun ship because otherwise you're having to mount twice as many guns as you want to fire in combat.

A turret-heavy layout lets you use all of your gun-tonnage in a fight, whereas casemate guns can obviously only fire on the side they're located on. While turrets need extra weight in terms of the turret mechanism you can still get your two or three guns per turret into a weight you would normally spend on six guns, which means your three turreted guns can be larger.

You probably won't be taking advantage of the ability to fire to both sides of the ship at the same time with a turret but the ability to bring the majority of the ship's armament to bear at once is a significant point when considering what you can equip the ship with.

Ensign Expendable posted:

The English language Wiki entry on the T-34 is garbage. You're better off using any other language + Google translate.

It does seem to have a weird "this tank was hugely successful but here's this massive list of reasons why it was poo poo" kind of bent to it.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Sep 18, 2016

# ? Sep 18, 2016 17:24

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

OwlFancier posted:

That was sort of the second world war in a nutshell for most parties concerned.

Also, it was the Japanese Home Islands. Absent a spontaneous Japanese surrender, there simply weren't any good options there.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 17:33

Koramei: Nov 11, 2011; I have three regrets
The first is to be born in Joseon.

I stopped trusting Wikipedia after I found a behind the scenes nationalist edit war on a couple of articles about glass beads.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 17:35

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Koramei posted:

I stopped trusting Wikipedia after I found a behind the scenes nationalist edit war on a couple of articles about glass beads.

....Czechs?

# ? Sep 18, 2016 17:37

spectralent: Oct 1, 2014; Me and the boys poppin' down to the shops

OwlFancier posted:

It does seem to have a weird "this tank was hugely successful but here's this massive list of reasons why it was poo poo" kind of bent to it.

This is literally all soviet tanks to 95% of amateur milhist nerds.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 17:41

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

spectralent posted:

This is literally all soviet tanks to 95% of amateur milhist nerds.

And most American tanks. Tommy Cookers, anyone?

# ? Sep 18, 2016 17:43

Monocled Falcon: Oct 30, 2011

SeanBeansShako posted:

Ironclad and pre-dreadnaughts designs look amazing and are wild stuff before they buttoned down with the efficiency. Like 18th to 19th century uniforms.

I'm open to the idea that 18th to 19th century uniforms changed for more than fashion related reasons, but what difference did it make?

And after thinking about it for a while, I can't help thinking modern people dress really bizarrely. Like a thin tshirt on top and a thick, rugged set of jeans. That's like wearing a teddy on top and plate armor on the bottom.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 17:48

spectralent: Oct 1, 2014; Me and the boys poppin' down to the shops

Cythereal posted:

And most American tanks. Tommy Cookers, anyone?

Yeah but that's WW2. Soviet stuff in the cold war still gets the "This tank is great but also terrible for reasons" treatment, whereas US tanks in the cold war are all overwhelming tools of tactical domination.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 18:01

SeanBeansShako: Nov 20, 2009; Now the Drums beat up again,
For all true Soldier Gentlemen.

Monocled Falcon posted:

I'm open to the idea that 18th to 19th century uniforms changed for more than fashion related reasons, but what difference did it make?

Okay so I am a gun powder era soldier late 1600's going into the next century. We've decided already some identification is certainly useful for our allies to not shoot us through the gun powder and along with our music and standards our commanding officers behind us can give our orders and keep track of us mostly what is next?

Well a turn of the 18th century uniform is essentially a huge sort of pseudo greatcoat with massive sleeves and coat tails for the soldiers to keep warm because it is cold outside and we're going to fight this war until october if we have too! and well, our regimental commander did pay for all our uniforms and he doesn't care what you think that fancy pants floppy hat will never go out of fashion. I'm just happy to not freeze to death sleeping in a field now. Oh and the new hat design keeps my head AND my shoulders dry now.

But as time passes, my equipment me and my soldier bros are carrying is either becoming obsolete or evolving due to changes in industry, tactics and what officers and gentlemen have observed and seen for themselves during their time in the wars. We do like the looks and influences of other cultures and countries lets ah, borrow them for a bit now. Man some of our dudes are super pumped and adding lots of lace and poo poo to our gear. At least now we can tell sort of who's the elites and who are the main schmucks or just stand and take fire now.

Now I got all this leather gear to carry stuff I can easily sling a greatcoat in my pack or tie awkwardly around my torso to protect me for a saber blow or two! but drat sure is harder marching lets just cut some of that uniform down bring those tails and sleeves in a little. Wait what the gently caress? gaiters? stocks? my poor knees and neck! well, at least now some of my bros can march around and move lightly. Some of them are wearing green and shooting with weird hunting rifles. Whatever gets them off I guess.

Oh cool, we got a Mitre for that act of bravery, now we can throw grenades without blowing ourselves up! We're grenadiers. Nope, not anymore! we're now merged with some other Fusilier jerks because of both the government and army now takes care of the regiment and needs to save money. We've got these fancy new felt hats with plumes that make us look taller. Also, gaiters and stocks are gone and we've got decent footwear at last. At least it isn't murder on my knees. I sure will miss powdering my hair. We've got trousers now, those are nice anything that lasts longer on campaign and keeps my warmer is a plus. The dye keeps fading though on my fancy factory produced coatee now.

Welp the Napoleonic Wars are over, I guess we've got nothing better to do that garrison duty, parade and the occasional bit of Imperialism/Colonial care taking. OH gently caress WHY IS MY HAT IS TALL. WHY CAN'T I BREATH THIS SHELL JACKET IS CUTTING OFF MY CIRCULATION. Oh well that was weird, we've just fought a proper war again and turns out the older style stuff we wore on fatigues is more practical again. Also, looks like the French got their poo poo pushed in so our fancy kepi are all now weird helmets made of cork with spikes on the top. Somebody will lose an eye over this. Also, these days it seems everyone is wearing different shades of indigo blue or navy. Except for some weirdo hold outs. I guess this new fangled smokeless powder will change things. It is harder to tell who is who these days I miss the big whacky hat era.

Oh hey we're wearing shades of green, grey and brown now. I don't laid as much but I am sure happy I am harder to hit now with these new bolt action rifles. What the gently caress is a machine gu-

SeanBeansShako fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Sep 18, 2016

# ? Sep 18, 2016 18:15

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

I do love whoever decided that what the enemy really needed was seeing the loving pope coming to stab the poo poo out of them with a bayonet after blowing them the gently caress up.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 18:33

SeanBeansShako: Nov 20, 2009; Now the Drums beat up again,
For all true Soldier Gentlemen.

OwlFancier posted:

I do love whoever decided that what the enemy really needed was seeing the loving pope coming to stab the poo poo out of them with a bayonet after blowing them the gently caress up.

I am curious to know whether the Mitre was just a fancy hats the religions and military institutions adopted or did it come from religion and just sort of spread because it looked cool and didn't get in the way of throwing grenades?

# ? Sep 18, 2016 18:36

xthetenth: Dec 30, 2012; Mario wasn't sure if this Jeb guy was a good influence on Yoshi.

OwlFancier posted:

I would argue that centerline turrets are necessary to build an efficient big-gun ship because otherwise you're having to mount twice as many guns as you want to fire in combat.

A turret-heavy layout lets you use all of your gun-tonnage in a fight, whereas casemate guns can obviously only fire on the side they're located on. While turrets need extra weight in terms of the turret mechanism you can still get your two or three guns per turret into a weight you would normally spend on six guns, which means your three turreted guns can be larger.

You probably won't be taking advantage of the ability to fire to both sides of the ship at the same time with a turret but the ability to bring the majority of the ship's armament to bear at once is a significant point when considering what you can equip the ship with.

For secondaries it's very rarely a question between centerline turrets and casemates, it's between turrets on the side and casemates. Seriously, the US considered it on a few battleships, did it on a few cruisers, and the Japanese did it on the Yamato, but at most that was half the secondaries in such mounts and the rest on the sides. Centerline space is valuable, and usually the centerline turrets are up top which means they have a big heavy barbette, they push the (also heavy) conning tower up higher, and the turret itself costs a bunch of topweight.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 19:18

Zorak of Michigan: Jun 10, 2006

Re: casemates, don't forget about internal separation and damage control. Most of the WWI-era casemate secondary armament fits had limited internal separation, so hits to that area could burn out multiple weapons at once very easily. Solving that problem with more subdivision complicates ammo supply arrangements, so you need to provide ammunition handling facilities for each weapon station. At that point you've got many of the disadvantages of a turret without the advantages. You might as well go all the way.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 20:09

OpenlyEvilJello: Dec 28, 2009

OwlFancier posted:

I would argue that centerline turrets are necessary to build an efficient big-gun ship because otherwise you're having to mount twice as many guns as you want to fire in combat.

A turret-heavy layout lets you use all of your gun-tonnage in a fight, whereas casemate guns can obviously only fire on the side they're located on. While turrets need extra weight in terms of the turret mechanism you can still get your two or three guns per turret into a weight you would normally spend on six guns, which means your three turreted guns can be larger.

You probably won't be taking advantage of the ability to fire to both sides of the ship at the same time with a turret but the ability to bring the majority of the ship's armament to bear at once is a significant point when considering what you can equip the ship with.

You have causality backwards here: The desire for an all-big-gun armament leads to an all-turret main battery, not the other way around. And if you're trying to say that centerline turrets are a key element of dreadnought design, then I have to question whether you've actually looked at many WWI-era dreadnoughts like, oh, I don't know, Dreadnought. A whole bunch of 'em have wacko wing turrets in a bid for axial fire.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 20:12

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

xthetenth posted:

For secondaries it's very rarely a question between centerline turrets and casemates, it's between turrets on the side and casemates. Seriously, the US considered it on a few battleships, did it on a few cruisers, and the Japanese did it on the Yamato, but at most that was half the secondaries in such mounts and the rest on the sides. Centerline space is valuable, and usually the centerline turrets are up top which means they have a big heavy barbette, they push the (also heavy) conning tower up higher, and the turret itself costs a bunch of topweight.

Well, yes, that's why all big-gun dreadnoughts stopped mounting as many secondary guns in favor of spending that weight on primary armament.

The HMS Dreadnought carried 5 twin 12 inch turrets, three on the centerline and two either side, and a bunch of 3 inch guns mounted all over for use against smaller targets (though you would want to avoid putting your dreadnought in direct combat with destroyers, good way to get it sunk).

In contrast with say, the Mikasa which carried two twin 12 centerline turrets, and 14 six inch guns mounted along the side, as well as a bunch of smaller guns. Dreadnoughts marked the transition away from large amounts of smaller guns into putting the bulk of the ship's weight and space into supporting large centerline guns and having as much of the armament in use in an engagement as possible.

I wouldn't expect to find any ships mounting secondary guns in centerline turrets because that's a bit of a waste of space, the point was that ships mounted more primary guns and in more centerline turrets to get the most use out of them.

Yes they did still use things like wing turrets and there's the Neptune that mounted its wing turrets so that they could fire over the ship and wreck the superstructure in the process but I would absolutely argue that there is a noticeable trend away from side mounted guns and towards central layouts.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Sep 18, 2016

# ? Sep 18, 2016 20:21

xthetenth: Dec 30, 2012; Mario wasn't sure if this Jeb guy was a good influence on Yoshi.

OpenlyEvilJello posted:

You have causality backwards here: The desire for an all-big-gun armament leads to an all-turret main battery, not the other way around. And if you're trying to say that centerline turrets are a key element of dreadnought design, then I have to question whether you've actually looked at many WWI-era dreadnoughts like, oh, I don't know, Dreadnought. A whole bunch of 'em have wacko wing turrets in a bid for axial fire.

That's a point actually. Centerline turrets come with some real costs on smaller ships. Axial fire was a consideration, but so was the very serious limit to stability that was the downright dinky hulls these early dreadnoughts were on. When the turrets themselves aren't super huge so the structures to put their weight on the keel aren't overly weighty and your centerline is full of machinery and other turrets, the wings start looking like a pretty good place to put guns. Superfiring turrets are also kind of expensive in terms of stability and thus ship to get that stability, and you've only got doubles, so when you can't load any more turrets on the end (too much weight on the ends), you're putting them between the boilers and machinery, and that means piping hot steam past the magazines, warming the powder, which makes the guns shoot a little bit farther and messes with your shot patterns.

OwlFancier posted:

Well, yes, that's why all big-gun dreadnoughts stopped mounting as many secondary guns in favor of spending that weight on primary armament.

The HMS Dreadnought carried 5 twin 12 inch turrets, three on the centerline and two either side, and a bunch of 3 inch guns mounted all over for use against smaller targets (though you would want to avoid putting your dreadnought in direct combat with destroyers, good way to get it sunk).

In contrast with say, the Mikasa which carried two twin 12 centerline turrets, and 14 six inch guns mounted along the side, as well as a bunch of smaller guns. Dreadnoughts marked the transition away from large amounts of smaller guns into putting the bulk of the ship's weight and space into supporting large centerline guns and having as much of the armament in use in an engagement as possible.

I wouldn't expect to find any ships mounting secondary guns in centerline turrets because that's a bit of a waste of space, the point was that ships mounted more primary guns and in more centerline turrets to get the most use out of them.

Primaries in casemates basically wasn't done for decades at that point, so you might understand why we confused your talk of guns in casemates for talk of secondaries.

Ship design is a really iterative process, it's not like the definitive superdread popped fully formed from Jackie Fisher's head.

xthetenth fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Sep 18, 2016

# ? Sep 18, 2016 20:29

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

What I was trying to say was that pre-dreadnought designs had fewer primary guns, and more secondary guns mounted in casemates or in side turrets, post-dreadnought designs did away with that in a large part, and designed the ship around carrying large guns in central turrets and using all of them at once, rather than having one side of the ship not doing anything.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 20:36

americong: May 29, 2013

I'm sure this one has been discussed to death, but what do the posters in this thread feel was the motivation for the use of the atomic bomb?

The grade-school explanation is "to avoid the costs of invasion"; I have been exposed to an alternate explanation that basically suggests that the American generals really badly wanted to be the ones occupying Japan, as opposed to the Russians.

I've also heard that US-Japan communications suffered from poor translation.

If there's a better post about this somewhere just go ahead and link me.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 22:47

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

americong posted:

I'm sure this one has been discussed to death, but what do the posters in this thread feel was the motivation for the use of the atomic bomb?

The grade-school explanation is "to avoid the costs of invasion"; I have been exposed to an alternate explanation that basically suggests that the American generals really badly wanted to be the ones occupying Japan, as opposed to the Russians.

I've also heard that US-Japan communications suffered from poor translation.

If there's a better post about this somewhere just go ahead and link me.

The old thread explicitly banned this particular subject. It always comes down to fruitless arguing over whether the atomic bomb was justified or not and it never goes anywhere interesting.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 22:49

wdarkk: Oct 26, 2007; Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten

It was dropped because it was ready. That's really the entire explanation.

After spending all that money the idea of somehow not dropping it wasn't on the table.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 22:50

Yvonmukluk: Oct 10, 2012; Everything is Sinister

Chump Farts posted:

Hey all, I'm going for a History MA and in the big leagues now. I'm doing a historiography on how perspectives of the two main armies in WWII changed as time went on and the Russian archives released. My bibliography so far is:
Alan Clark: Barbarossa.
David Glantz's Stalingrad Volume 1.
Michael K Jone:' How the Red Army Triumphed
Heinz Guderian: Panzer Leader
Max Hastings: Inferno
Cornelius Ryan: The Last Battle

I'm ordering Chuikov's "Battle of Stalingrad"
Glantz's Volume 2 for the Stalingrad series
and Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer

Any suggestion on other works to include? I'm thinking Manstein and Halder's accounts, but I'm wondering if "Survivors of Stalingrad" by Reinhold Busch or maybe Liddell's books can help out, too.

Books or primary source thoughts would be extremely helpful.

Huh, I did a similar topic for my dissertation. Is 'I'm working on an analyses of the shifting historiography of the Eastern Front' a version of 'do you have stairs in your house' solely for history students/graduates?

I can track down the books I used, but honestly I think you kind of have me beat already.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 22:51

americong: May 29, 2013

Cythereal posted:

The old thread explicitly banned this particular subject. It always comes down to fruitless arguing over whether the atomic bomb was justified or not and it never goes anywhere interesting.

I can totally see that and I'm sorry in advance if I've made the thread terrible for the next few pages.

E:

I guess I was asking less of a morality question and more of a "why did it end up happening" question, although it's hard to discuss one and not the other.

americong fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Sep 18, 2016

# ? Sep 18, 2016 22:51

The Belgian: Oct 28, 2008

americong posted:

I can totally see that and I'm sorry in advance if I've made the thread terrible for the next few pages.

E:

I guess I was asking less of a morality question and more of a "why did it end up happening" question, although it's hard to discuss one and not the other.

Cythereal's post a higher up on this page give a nice idea of part of what the alternative would entail.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 22:57

Polikarpov: Jun 1, 2013; Keep it between the buoys

"Centerline turrets are for nerds"- Bizarro Jackie Fisher, May 1918

http://nws-online.proboards.com/thread/449/badnoughts-experiment

Polikarpov fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Sep 18, 2016

# ? Sep 18, 2016 23:01

spectralent: Oct 1, 2014; Me and the boys poppin' down to the shops

americong posted:

I've also heard that US-Japan communications suffered from poor translation.

A fun fact you may not know and will hopefully not derail the thread:

The Japanese "sneak attack" at Pearl Harbour was an accident. The sap that was meant to be translating the declaration of war took too long and the attack was underway before it was done.

Though the content was also something like "Given the issues we have had, we cannot see a way to amicably resolve our differences" which is probably also the least clear way to say "We're going to bomb you now".

# ? Sep 18, 2016 23:04

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# ? May 17, 2024 23:03

OpenlyEvilJello: Dec 28, 2009

OwlFancier posted:

What I was trying to say was that pre-dreadnought designs had fewer primary guns, and more secondary guns mounted in casemates or in side turrets, post-dreadnought designs did away with that in a large part, and designed the ship around carrying large guns in central turrets and using all of them at once, rather than having one side of the ship not doing anything.

On the plus side, we have now had a much more in-depth discussion of problems in turn-of-the-century warship design.

Polikarpov posted:

Centerline turrets are for nerds

http://nws-online.proboards.com/thread/449/badnoughts-experiment

I loved this guy's work. Such fancy superstructure drawing.

# ? Sep 18, 2016 23:06

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Military History Mk. III: One that I know of is an archaic word for dick, another is

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