quote:In July 1809 the largest British expeditionary force ever assembled weighed anchor off the Kent coast and sailed for the island of Walcheren in the Scheldt estuary.1,2 French naval activity at Antwerp had made the Dutch coast “a pistol held at the head of England,” and the government was keen to strike a decisive blow at Napoleon's ambitions. In the event, the preparation of the expedition was ponderous and its strategic aim was redundant before its execution. Napoleon had consolidated his grip on the continent by defeating the Austrians at Wagram earlier in the month. Find out more about the worst holiday the Napoleonic British Army suffered here!
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 21:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 13:22 |
|
|
The most basic of the fire control instruments was a range clock. Vickers built the first one to Admiral Percy Scott's design. They were widely deployed starting in 1906. What a range clock did was keep the range. You plotted the range to the target manually and once you had enough data points to draw a line through them, you set the clock for current range and the rate of change. The clock would then show the current range at any given moment... at least until the geometry of the situation changed. For short to medium range, this was pretty darn useful for a clockwork device: I'm taking this from Brooks, and http://dreadnoughtproject.org/tfs/index.php/Category:Fire_Control They're doing yeoman work in presenting info on the period, including 3d models and simulations of the actual equipment. Here's a Dumaresq range solver in action doing basically what Polyakov posted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQTBfvJH_xc
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 21:31
|
|
|
Yvonmukluk posted: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? From pages back but I did this too. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 22:20
|
|
|
Polyakov posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4 gently caress, I was gonna link this. It's long, but it's incredibly worth while if you want to understand mechanical computing. Essentially, it starts by explaining simple mechanisms that perform basic mathematical operations (e.g. "this is how you multiply") and then shows you how to begin combining them. The final computer is left as an exercise for the
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 22:25
|
|
|
Hey Nenonen, post about that thing Nenonen Senior invented that made Finnish arty rock during the war, tia. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 22:36
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:I'm on page 305.  Hah! Nice.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 23:02
|
|
|
As always, navweaps has really good articles on fire control computers and directors. The Mark 1 Fire Control Computer The Mark 51 FCS Fire Control Systems in WWII
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 23:28
|
|
|
The 100 Years Ago Today Subreddit talked about the Brusilov Offencive, does anyone know if anything about the Russian preparations and strategic conditions going into it, strategy and so on, that maybe highlights or foreshadows Russian strategic and operational strengths? Like could you look back at it and see "Aha, and this is why Bagration."
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 01:54
|
|
|
Raenir Salazar posted:The 100 Years Ago Today Subreddit talked about the Brusilov Offencive, does anyone know if anything about the Russian preparations and strategic conditions going into it, strategy and so on, that maybe highlights or foreshadows Russian strategic and operational strengths? Like could you look back at it and see "Aha, and this is why Bagration." IIRC Brusilov's tactics probably had a significant impact on other European countries in the short term (during WWI), but they didn't have any kind of defining influence on Russian tactics generally over a longer term. Brusilov's tactics--advancing trenches under camouflage to serve as forward scouting and assault positions, extended observation to establish enemy strength and positioning, brief but accurate and intense preparatory bombardment followed immediately by close assault from picked infantry teams--presaged and probably influenced infiltration tactics used later on in the war. However, there isn't a straight line between that and Bagration. There is a family resemblance. Carefully plotted, pre-sighted, and brief but intense artillery preparation continued to be part of Soviet offensives for a long time. Camouflage, secrecy, and deception (the Russian umbrella term is maskirovka) was also a feature, but they had a staff college devoted to military deception before WWI. Soviet military theoreticians and the ideas they produce had a lot more to do with their hands-on experience in the Russian Civil War, and later on WWII, than with Brusilov.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 02:47
|
|
|
Any recommendations for audiobooks on European military history? Specific or general subjects. I have a lot of driving ahead of me.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 03:13
|
|
|
Raenir Salazar posted:The 100 Years Ago Today Subreddit talked about the Brusilov Offencive, does anyone know if anything about the Russian preparations and strategic conditions going into it, strategy and so on, that maybe highlights or foreshadows Russian strategic and operational strengths? Like could you look back at it and see "Aha, and this is why Bagration." Speaking of, I wonder what trin is up to. He's getting pretty far behind.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 03:22
|
|
|
Dirt Worshipper posted:Any recommendations for audiobooks on European military history? Specific or general subjects. I have a lot of driving ahead of me. Somme: Into the Breach is a new one that I'm going to start next week probably but if you want to test it out for me the initial reviews have been fantastic. Marked for Death: The First War in the Air is another one; there hasn't been a good study on the WWI air war in quite a while. If you're looking for just straight up time rending semi historical audiobooks, Pillars of the Earth and North and South can eat up time like no other thing. edit - John Lee also did Guns of August and Fall of Giants and both those were great. Basically, anything John Lee narrates. bewbies fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Sep 21, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 03:34
|
|
|
Dirt Worshipper posted:Any recommendations for audiobooks on European military history? Specific or general subjects. I have a lot of driving ahead of me. speaking of book recs I ordered the myth of the eastern front, and while poking around came across some survey-style texts on milhist the cambridge history of warfare looked pretty interesting (if long), does anyone have experience with that/alternate recommendations for survey texts e: is looking for survey texts A Mistake in general
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 03:41
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:Do you perhaps mean, 45.9%? If not, I would love to see that report. I found the table he's speaking of! I'ts Maksim Kolomiets, Proslaveniy t-34(Moscow: Yauza, 2012) page 470.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 04:39
|
|
|
Christ, I would not want to try and fix a mechanical fire control computer if there was any significant shock/mechanical damage.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 05:43
|
|
|
americong posted:
I definitely wouldn't put them down as a mistake, and think they can be excellent for exploratory reading and for signposting further research. No one can read everything in a primary or even secondary form.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 08:05
|
|
|
Monocled Falcon posted:I found the table he's speaking of! I'ts Maksim Kolomiets, Proslaveniy t-34(Moscow: Yauza, 2012) page 470. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 08:27
|
|
|
There's actually a more important supplementary table that provides the explanation - the total disappearance of guns other than the 88 and 75mm from the German arsenal in 1943 onwards, and that the majority of tanks were hit from the side.
Fangz fucked around with this message at 08:50 on Sep 21, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 08:38
|
|
|
Plan Z posted:This was sort of done in Iraq during the Bush years. Not effectually, though. When the time came to take Fallujah, former Iraqi soldiers( whom the occupational authority had fired in a fit of genious), promised they could pacify the area. They took a shitload of vehicles, weapons and money, and then promptly disappeared, because they were insurgents all along. Ensign Expendable posted:The tradition of HEY GAL's people lives on. Isn't this guy a cossack soldier wannabe? Would explain the bling. Tias fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Sep 21, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 08:40
|
|
|
hogmartin posted:
I just reread some of those articles on a lark, and it's just precious how on every single one of them there will be at least one wehraboo in the comments vociferously defending the german tanker's honour. "No, you see, the soviets reported 30 tanks lost over a week across the whole front. That totally makes this dude's claim of 24 kills in a single day viable!" 
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 09:26
|
|
|
Jeez, the WWII Debate thread in D&D is like the bizarro MilHist thread. It's Gay Black Hitlers all the way down, nobody has evidence to back up anything and the points don't matter.HEY GAL posted:if wallenstein was immune to being shot, does a missile still count as a "bullet" for the purposes of the magic What i'm hearing is that Wallenstein was vulnerable to bazookas but not recoilless rifles *takes notes furiously*
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 09:53
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:if wallenstein was immune to being shot, does a missile still count as a "bullet" for the purposes of the magic How did he become immune to being shot in the first place? Also what made him believe this to be true other than not being shot?
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 10:03
|
|
|
MikeCrotch posted:Jeez, the WWII Debate thread in D&D is like the bizarro MilHist thread. It's Gay Black Hitlers all the way down, nobody has evidence to back up anything and the points don't matter.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 10:04
|
|
|
Boiled Water posted:How did he become immune to being shot in the first place? Also what made him believe this to be true other than not being shot? and i don't know if he believed it about himself but everyone around him definitely did, in Quartermaster Deodati's account of Luetzen he mentions quite straightforwardly, "yeah the general-in-chief was at the head of his troops, a musket ball hit him but didn't go through, this happened loads of times, it's normal for him" edit: general shot, so what HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Sep 21, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 10:06
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:never go to d&d Congratulations on breaking your year-long streak of bad posts. Edit: ahahahaha there's a 54 page abomb thread. The op is the c&p'd text of a salon article. Holy gently caress. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Sep 21, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 10:16
|
|
|
Rodrigo Diaz posted:Edit: ahahahaha there's a 54 page abomb thread. The op is the c&p'd text of a salon article. Holy gently caress. link?
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 10:47
|
|
|
Tias posted:Isn't this guy a cossack soldier wannabe? Would explain the bling. Afaik that is a conscript demobbing celebratory tradition. It seems to have escalated a bit since the soviet era. Then: http://www.soviet-uniforms.com/items/_539/539.html Now:  e: I vaguely remember there being something similar in the Bundeswehr, but extremely few people felt it enough to bother. Conscription was down to nine months by then and it was just this pro forma thing, not much emotion involved. But the base store had some out-of-regs uniform addition stuff you could get. God, it's been forever. aphid_licker fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Sep 21, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 11:56
|
|
|
aphid_licker posted:Afaik that is a conscript demobbing celebratory tradition. It seems to have escalated a bit since the soviet era. Oh okay. I heard people with (real or imagined) cossack lineage dress up like soldiers with garish bling all the time, my bad.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 11:59
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:he was frozen, op. Okay, this is literally the worst milhist question ever, but I have a 5 year old daughter, and so: is it possible that this concept of "frozen" nobles with their weird battlefield abilities inspired a certain recent Disney movie of the same name......
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 12:03
|
|
|
Rodrigo Diaz posted:Congratulations on breaking your year-long streak of bad posts. I think this was the thread where somebody was arguing 1) the only moral attack would for the USAAF to drop food, which would 2) cause the population to rise up and demand surrender?
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 12:06
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:I think this was the thread where somebody was arguing 1) the only moral attack would for the USAAF to drop food, which would 2) cause the population to rise up and demand surrender? I remember doing the math for operation feed Japan and it was shall we say unrealistic
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 13:17
|
|
|
bewbies posted:I remember doing the math for operation feed Japan and it was shall we say unrealistic Short supply line too.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 13:33
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:I think this was the thread where somebody was arguing 1) the only moral attack would for the USAAF to drop food, which would 2) cause the population to rise up and demand surrender? I believe I saw a rebuttal to this, using the known numbers from the Berlin airdrop operation to demonstrate that the US would require more cargo planes and converted bombers than they produced during the entire war to actually supply enough food to keep the population of Japan fed. Edit: Yeah, bewbies was the one. Is it possible for us to get that post back?
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 13:41
|
|
|
Even if you could drop all the food how would it lead to surrender? I'm imagining "drop food -> ??? -> surrender".
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 13:49
|
|
|
Yeah Imperial Japan was full of Goku anime characters who'd stop fighting if they ate. Great point made, terrible WW2 d&d thread.
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 13:53
|
|
|
put a polite note requesting surrender on each food packet
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 13:54
|
|
|
Boiled Water posted:Even if you could drop all the food how would it lead to surrender? I'm imagining "drop food -> ??? -> surrender". The people will naturally see the good of democracy and overthrow their evil rules of course 
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 13:54
|
|
|
The Belgian posted:The people will naturally see the good of democracy and overthrow their evil rules of course I mean yes this was basically the argument being made when I was figuring all of that crap out I remember being pretty fascinated by the idea in general, not necessarily because the idea was strategically valid, but more like, the world's largest Air Force ever in the history of time, with the entire might of the world's largest war economy behind it, successfully supply an enormous isolated island nation solely by air. Even attempting it would have been as large an undertaking as we probably ever seen in human history and it would have madeother extraordinary logistical efforts from the time look Absolutely tiny in comparison
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 14:06
|
|
|
Pity you can't compress nutrition the way you can explosive power.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 14:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 13:22 |
|
bewbies posted:I mean yes this was basically the argument being made Something bigger than the Berlin Airlift with a much longer way to go supplying an entire war torn country would be an amazing feat to see actually worked out.
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 14:25
|
|