|
The Italian Navy Seals were cool. The badge is so amazingly Italian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decima_Flottiglia_MAS
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2017 23:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 18:25 |
|
|
aphid_licker posted:The Italian Navy Seals were cool. The badge is so amazingly Italian. hooOOOLY poo poo that skull
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2017 23:26
|
|
|
That is the biggest roman numeral I have ever seen on a badge.
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2017 23:27
|
|
|
I like it how the X also
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2017 23:37
|
|
|
SeanBeansShako posted:That is the biggest roman numeral I have ever seen on a badge. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2017 23:39
|
|
Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
|
american patches for offbeat or obscure things are loving great, the best are spies and the DEA
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2017 23:45
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2017 23:52
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2017 23:58
|
|
|
Those patches make drugs seem rad as gently caress, which is probably the opposite of the message they should be sending.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 00:00
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:Those patches make drugs seem rad as gently caress, which is probably the opposite of the message they should be sending. It's what keeps them in business.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 00:01
|
|
|
Nothing beats the Zheleznogorsk logo.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 00:02
|
|
|
my dad posted:Nothing beats the Zheleznogorsk logo.  checks out
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 00:04
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:hooOOOLY poo poo that skull Åke Tott flew something like that as his standard.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 00:04
|
|
|
That bear is inducing a fission explosion!
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 00:05
|
|
|
The NRO patches are the greatest especially when you consider they end up plastered over the rocket fairings  
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 00:06
|
|
|
Kemper Boyd posted:Åke Tott flew something like that as his standard.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 00:16
|
|
|
So I just watched an amazing Danish movie, Land of Mine, about a bunch of German child soldiers being forced to dig out thousand of mines in the shores of Denmark and it's a really strong and depressing movie and I want to know if there are good sources on how bad things were for Hitler Youth and Volkssturm kids during and after the war.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 00:28
|
|
|
spectralent posted:
I got that on a shirt. It's pretty cheap on Amazon.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 00:55
|
|
|
lenoon posted:I've read so many junior officer, explorer, civil servant and intelligence officer biographies that I think I can fumble towards some vague understanding of why they were like that. I'm catching up on the day's thread so this is a little bit behind, but if anyone wants to learn more about this sort of thing in this context I can recommend Into The Silence by Wade Davis. The subtitle is The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest and it is (unsurprisingly) about the various British expeditions to climb Everest culminating in Mallory and Irvine's deaths in 1924. But as the subtitle suggests it starts off talking about the 'public school ethos' and the imperial project mindset in the late-19th/early-20th centuries, how this affected British experiences in WW1 and in turn how WW1 affected those that survived it but whose formative years were before it. Because the urge to risk life climbing mountains was a big part of that coping mechanism. In regard to Scott the 'play up, play up and play the game' thinking is what led Scott's team to literally walk themselves to death. Man-hauling was the 'honourable' way to travel and pitted man against nature in a 'fair fight'. Amudsen used dog teams and his whole expedition was built around dashing a small team to the Pole and back a quickly and safely as possible. Scott may have used dogs, ponies and motor-sleds to lay his supply lines but the idea of doing anything other than walking to the Pole unassisted was unthinkable because it wouldn't be 'right'. And doing all the prep that Amudsen did smacked of professionalism too, which the public school ethos abhorred. You were supposed to be a plucky amateur who acheived great feats in the service of King and Empire through force of will and strength of character  It's why in terms of British prestige it hardly mattered that Scott was beaten to the Pole and had his entire team die on the return trip. He 'played the game' and played it well. He may have lost but he played the game. It is, I think, a peculiarly Establishment British way of thinking and it still echoes around the place today. BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Jan 6, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 01:00
|
|
|
BalloonFish posted:And doing all the prep that Amudsen did smacked of professionalism too, which the public school ethos abhorred.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 01:05
|
|
|
NROL-39 will forever be my favorite. Even better than the Simpsons joke: 
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 01:17
|
|
|
Brits, the original scrubs going "omg fcking tryhard". It looks to me it's mostly a celebration of natural talent and being happy with one's position on the great big scoreboard of life. Some people are just born to be great tennis players or whatever. Like almost the exact opposite of the American Dream, in a way.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 01:19
|
|
|
Hell, while I'm at it, I'm going to repost America.png, seen at the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin AFB
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 01:21
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:from an outside perspective i will never understand, never ever, how the british can valorize incompetence like they do. I think it's partially fetishizing natural talent, like how Suvorov hid all the careful work he did so he could present the results as being from inspirational genius.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 01:22
|
|
|
HEY GAL posted:from an outside perspective i will never understand, never ever, how the british can valorize incompetence like they do. I'm a Brit and I don't really understand it either, but I recognise it. It seems to come down to two things: 1) Incompetence can be excused if you're 'a good chap'. You can be a complete bungler from one end of your career to another but if you carry on with an air of affable grace, can pass the port in the right direction around a mess table, pay your drinking bills on time and can drop appropriate Ovid quotes into conversation then it doesn't really matter. 1b) No one who went to the right prep school, the right public school and the right Oxbridge college/joined the right Army regiment/etc. can be a 'bad chap'. 2 aka 'The Captain Scott Clause') Failure can be excused if you tried in the right way. In fact you haven't really failed because the point is to play the game, not win it. This is called 'being a good sport'. Practising, preparing or even being an expert at something is 'just not cricket' because it gives you an unfair advantage. I also think the class system has a lot to do with it. Some people are just naturally 'better' than others. If you're at Oxbridge you're part of the elite and so you shouldn't have to try, you don't have to be an expert and if you fail it can't have been your fault. To keep this reasonably MilHist - would any other nation consider the Dunkirk Evacuation to be such a fondly-remembered and seminal part of its military and cultural history? While the evacuation was, on its own terms, successful it came at the end of a crushing strategic defeat in which the BEF lost 1/7th of its men and a huge proportion of its equipment, vehicles and ammunition. But because it involved plucky Tommies being whisked back to the safety of their sceptred isle by a fleet of amateur civilians in their motorboats and sailing yachts from under the guns of Jerries it becomes this sentimental, positive thing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 01:36
|
|
|
imagine if that had happened to early modern spain, you could have the same exact actions but in their hands it would become a story of melancholy and vanished glory; heroism, but only the sad kind. i mean, it did, that's the battle of rocroi. edit: similar backs-to-the-wall actions but the spanish are not "plucky." HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Jan 6, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 01:38
|
|
|
Earlier in this thread there was a sobering post /series of posts that included a transcript of a German soldier's personal experience with war crimes, the killing of women, children, etc, getting blind drunk in order to deal with it better, etc. I think in Poland? I want to track it down, if someone can find the post or the source of said post. It was unremittingly horrifying, if that helps ring any bells. Eela6 fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Jan 6, 2017 |
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 01:43
|
|
|
Eela6 posted:Earlier in this thread there was a sobering post /series of posts that included a transcript of a German soldier's personal experience with war crimes, the killing of women, children, etc, getting blind drunk in order to deal with it better, etc. I think in Poland? I want to track it down, if someone can find the post or the source of said post. It was the Warsaw Uprising I think. And yeah it was horrifying.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 01:46
|
|
|
Eela6 posted:Earlier in this thread there was a sobering post /series of posts that included a transcript of a German soldier's personal experience with war crimes, the killing of women, children, etc, getting blind drunk in order to deal with it better, etc. I think in Poland? I want to track it down, if someone can find the post or the source of said post. It involved Dirlewanger, of course it was utterly horrifying.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 01:49
|
|
|
gently caress the SS.
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 01:55
|
|
|
SeanBeansShako posted:gently caress the SS.  ?
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 02:25
|
|
|
That is gently caress a SS. Don't go near any horses my friend.
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 02:30
|
|
|
Woah the Lebensborn program was real? I'm kind of embarrassed I never knew about it, I thought it was invented for The Man in the High Castle as a way to illustrate ~creepy Nazi reproduction~ weirdness.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 02:32
|
|
|
BalloonFish posted:To keep this reasonably MilHist - would any other nation consider the Dunkirk Evacuation to be such a fondly-remembered and seminal part of its military and cultural history? While the evacuation was, on its own terms, successful it came at the end of a crushing strategic defeat in which the BEF lost 1/7th of its men and a huge proportion of its equipment, vehicles and ammunition. But because it involved plucky Tommies being whisked back to the safety of their sceptred isle by a fleet of amateur civilians in their motorboats and sailing yachts from under the guns of Jerries it becomes this sentimental, positive thing. I think most places valorise successful last-ditch defences and stuff. When you're getting crushed in anything, a point where you rally is always going to be notable.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 02:34
|
|
|
spectralent posted:I think most places valorise successful last-ditch defences and stuff. When you're getting crushed in anything, a point where you rally is always going to be notable.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 02:35
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I don't think it's quite fair to criticize the Regia Aeronautica for not having dedicated torpedo planes or torpedo doctrine since the SM.79 performed very well early in the war. The SM.79 was never meant to be a torpedo bomber. The Regia Aeronautica blew off the idea of building dedicated naval strike aircraft throughout the 1930s until the Spanish Civil War taught them that you can't rely on lots of tiny bombs dropped by medium bombers to sink ships or even damage them. When they realized they actually needed specialized torpedo planes they had to kludge something together prestissimo, and the SM.79 was all that would fit the bill. Italy entered the war with a torpedo bomber force more through luck than anything else. It was lucky for the Italians it worked as well as it did, because every single attempt to build something better failed miserably or wasn't ready until the 1943 armistice made it irrelevant.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 02:38
|
|
|
spectralent posted:I think most places valorise successful last-ditch defences and stuff. When you're getting crushed in anything, a point where you rally is always going to be notable. US forces at Bataan and the frozen Chosin come to mind for me.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 02:47
|
|
|
Crazycryodude posted:Woah the Lebensborn program was real? I'm kind of embarrassed I never knew about it, I thought it was invented for The Man in the High Castle as a way to illustrate ~creepy Nazi reproduction~ weirdness. Oh yes. Very much so. In fact, if theres a crazy Nazi scheme you heard about in a book or show, its probably grounded in reality.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 02:53
|
|
|
ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:The SM.79 was never meant to be a torpedo bomber. The Regia Aeronautica blew off the idea of building dedicated naval strike aircraft throughout the 1930s until the Spanish Civil War taught them that you can't rely on lots of tiny bombs dropped by medium bombers to sink ships or even damage them. When they realized they actually needed specialized torpedo planes they had to kludge something together prestissimo, and the SM.79 was all that would fit the bill. Italy entered the war with a torpedo bomber force more through luck than anything else. Building a good multirole airplane isn't just luck, though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 02:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 18:25 |
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Building a good multirole airplane isn't just luck, though. It was luck in this case, because the SM.79 was never meant to be multi-role (or at least not that kind of multi-role) in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2017 02:58
|
|