|
Fangz posted:Well look at gun cam footage. Holy poo poo, one of those videos is 'reach your hand out and touch the ground' levels of low altitude.
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 16:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 22, 2024 10:34 |
|
|
So like yeah. I can believe that strafing can be quite easily survivable if you scatter and dive into ditches or something, and the pilot isn't very determined. But if the original poster's player is happily standing there out in the open thinking he can't be hit, and the pilot really has it out for him... Time to hand out a new character sheet.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 17:15
|
|
|
Ice Fist posted:Holy poo poo, one of those videos is 'reach your hand out and touch the ground' levels of low altitude. I was going "It's cool how we have a cloudtop fight" before I realised the other plane was on the airfield 
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 17:16
|
|
|
Fangz posted:So like yeah. They just use the stats for automatic crossbows so it's only like 2d6 damage.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 17:16
|
|
|
Also, unlike .50's or .303, the Mig-15s cannons fired large explosive shells. Think of each round as a grenade, there will be shrapnel all over the place. A round from that 37mm alone could have killed a few people if it struck near them. It's nothing like movies with two thin lines of dust kicking off the ground. This is a very Significant Emotional Event, with loud explosions going off around you, more like a very rapid concentrated mortar attack. One pass and maybe you all live if you took cover, and congrats you have PTSD. Two passes on target, lots people will die and/or be maimed. If you wanna know more about the effectiveness of strafing attacks with this kind of cannon armament, read up on the IL-2 Sturmovik. Animal fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jan 18, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 17:18
|
|
|
Fangz posted:So like yeah. They couldn't actually die at that point, because Holodeck, and unlike Star Trek, the safeties were on. The penalty was dying slowed them down in their race for *really complicated backstory* before the other side got there first which would lead to *Unnecessary details*.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 17:35
|
|
|
37mm was anti-tank gun caliber in the interwar period. And then someone stuck it on a plane, gave it hellmurder high explosive incendiary god knows what ammo, and made it shoot fully automatic. A distressing weapon.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 17:58
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:37mm was anti-tank gun caliber in the interwar period. And then someone made the GAU-8 Avenger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX3eEGtFzXs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOQGUETQK1g
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:09
|
|
|
The M4M guy might be interested in this: The fact that a 45 ton Sherman with 4 machineguns nor a 76.5 mm gun have been seen since suggests that their source was full of poo poo. Edit: hehehehe 
Ensign Expendable fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Jan 18, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:34
|
|
|
my dad posted:Huh, didn't know there was a special Western cut, although it really shouldn't have come as a surprise. Were the scenes portraying the Chetniks negatively cut out? USA was where most of them who left Yugoslavia ended up after the war. Or was it just a cut to reduce the length of the film? can someone explain what exactly chetniks were?
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:46
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:The bullet still went in Teddy Roosevelt, he just didn't let the doctors try to take it out. It should also be noted that teddy was shot with a .38, not a rifle or even a magnum pistol cartridge.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:50
|
|
|
The hard thing with ground attack isn't really the destructive power of the aircraft, it is 1) finding the targets, 2) staying around long enough to service the targets, and 3) surviving at low altitude.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 18:55
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:The M4M guy might be interested in this: I've been searching for information since I asked, and while there is a lot of discussion it all seems to date back to an Zaloga book I don't have access to. I have no idea of what source he used for the information.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 19:00
|
|
|
bewbies posted:The hard thing with ground attack isn't really the destructive power of the aircraft, it is 1) finding the targets, 2) staying around long enough to service the targets, and 3) surviving at low altitude. Are modern aircraft vulnerable to massed archer fire?
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 19:29
|
|
|
Slim Jim Pickens posted:Are modern aircraft vulnerable to massed archer fire? According to Civilization II, yes.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 19:46
|
|
|
I wouldn't want to be the pilot whose plane sucked up a few arrows into their jet intakes.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 19:49
|
|
|
Slim Jim Pickens posted:Are modern aircraft vulnerable to massed archer fire? The Sentinelese seem to think so.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 20:30
|
|
|
P-Mack posted:The Sentinelese seem to think so. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 20:42
|
|
|
darthbob88 posted:On the other hand, they made it back like this. That's an art installation.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 20:48
|
|
|
bewbies posted:service the targets Now that's a heck of a euphemism
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 20:54
|
|
|
Some of those attack runs are loving terrifying. I assume there's some perspective issues going on or something but still. Has someone managed to come up with a credible guess how high the CFIT loss rate from strafing was even before ground fire is added into the mix?
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 21:14
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:It should also be noted that teddy was shot with a .38, not a rifle or even a magnum pistol cartridge. Related to .38's I read from somewhere that the gangsters of the prohibition era wore "ganster vests", vests made of several layers of thick cloth that could stop .38 bullets. Does anyone have any info on these?
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 22:14
|
|
|
Ataxerxes posted:Related to .38's I read from somewhere that the gangsters of the prohibition era wore "ganster vests", vests made of several layers of thick cloth that could stop .38 bullets. Does anyone have any info on these? Silk vests were pretty common 19th and early 20th century body armor. The properties of massed layers of silk allow it to "catch" bullets not unlike Kevlar. Franz Ferdinand was wearing one when he was shot and likely would have survived had Princip not shot him in the neck instead.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 22:19
|
|
|
wdarkk posted:That's an art installation. Looks more like a dart installation. No idea why anyone would install so many darts on a plane though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 23:11
|
|
|
Ataxerxes posted:Related to .38's I read from somewhere that the gangsters of the prohibition era wore "ganster vests", vests made of several layers of thick cloth that could stop .38 bullets. Does anyone have any info on these? Handguns around the turn of the century, especially gentlemen's small arms, were hilariously underpowered by modern standards. Lots of stuff chambered in .25 ACP, .32 ACP, etc. I don't think a silk vest was going to stop .380 ACP considering that the ballistics are fairly similar to 9x19 and Princip was something like six feet away.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 23:20
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Handguns around the turn of the century, especially gentlemen's small arms, were hilariously underpowered by modern standards. Lots of stuff chambered in .25 ACP, .32 ACP, etc. The purpose of those vests wasn't so much to stop a small caliber handgun round as it was to slow them down enough that the wound might not be fatal. Also .380 ACP might get pretty zippy when loaded for self defense today, but your run of the mill bog standard non +P loading is significantly weaker than a similarly standard 9x19. Enough so to save Princip if it hits his silk vest? I have no idea.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 23:26
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:The purpose of those vests wasn't so much to stop a small caliber handgun round as it was to slow them down enough that the wound might not be fatal. Yeah, it's definitely got a lower ceiling than 9x19 but early 9x19 loads are pretty light, too. I would be curious to see the actual methodology of that study. I feel like Ferd gets hosed up no matter what at that range, but would be interested to see the data.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 23:37
|
|
|
bewbies posted:2) staying around long enough to service the targets U.S. military speak is hilarious sometimes.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 23:45
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:Yes. This depends entirely on which plane we're talking about, how many guns it has, how much time it has to acquire target, set up a strafing run, and fire. Other considerations to take into account are weather, time of day, and local geography. Not to mention pilot skill and why s/he would want to fire at an unknown ground target. Strafing runs are mostly popularized by American aircraft, thanks to guncam footage available on the internet. This changes quite a bit when you take into consideration other aircraft that may have half the guns (Bf-109G) compared to other aircraft (P-51D). As for limited ammunition, let's take a P-47D-30 as an example. It has 8 .50 cal MGs and 3400 rounds. That's 425 rounds per gun, and the M2 Browning they had fired between 750-850 rounds per minute. Given an average 800 rounds per min, we get about 30 seconds of continuous fire. A MiG-15bis has 2 x 23mm cannons, 80 rounds each, and 1 x 37mm cannon, 40 rounds. The cyclic rate of the 23mm cannons is 800-850 rpm, which gives 0.097 minutes of fire - 6 seconds. The 37mm cannon fires at 400 rpm, for 0.1 minutes of fire, 6 seconds. Also, got to decide what kind of ammunition its using (or what mix it has in its belts) Time to roll those dice!
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2017 23:48
|
|
|
Kanine posted:can someone explain what exactly chetniks were? I'll, uh, try to give a short explanation, but keep in mind that this is stuff I last did any reading on years ago, and probably not very accurate beyond the general gist of it. tl;dr version: A loose coalition of Yugoslav Royal Army forces, Serbian nationalist militias, and random bandit-y chucklefucks who joined up for their own reasons. The ratio varied as the war went on (people who wanted to fight the Nazis had a tendency of getting killed fighting the Nazis or going "gently caress this poo poo, I'm out" when asked to work with the Nazis, so the movement chucklefuckified as time went on) with the main goals of fighting the Ustaše, fighting the Nazis, and fighting the Communists. This list of priorities changed, at first working with the Communists, then fighting the Nazis being mostly dropped in favor of fighting the Ustaše and the Communists, and finally droping all pretense of fighting for a good cause and fighting side by side with the Ustaše just to try to stop the Communists. However, it's worth noting that the movement itself was extremely decentralized due to lacking access to regular means of communication without exposing themselves and lacking the years of preparation for a guerilla war that the Communists had. There were Chetnik groups that spent the war protecting local populations against massacres, and there were Chetnik groups that engaged in massacres of their own (and there were groups that did both at the same time). A longer version that tries to describe the key elements of how the movement started and what it turned into, also partially covering the Partizans, which is kinda necessary to get the bigger picture: The Chetniks started out as the remnants of the Yugoslav Royal Army who refused to accept capitulation to Nazi Germany and under command of colonel Draža Mihajlović. At first, they fought alongside Tito's Partizans, and near the end of August 1941 this coalition launched several attacks on German forces (notably, and important to note for later, local Chetnik forces acted on their own initiative rather than by the orders of Mihajlović who didn't think it was the right time to act. He does this a lot.), causing the surrender or retreat of several German garrisons, while disabling roads and infrastructure important to German logistics. Draža gets a ridiculous bounty put up for his head, which backfired and caused even more people to join the Chetniks (and, ironically, the Partizans), since they were seen as clearly doing something right. Eventually, the Chetniks and the Partizans shared control of a surprisingly large area around the city of Užice. Half of Serbia had armed rebels on standby, ready to strike as soon as the Nazis were sufficiently distracted, and there was heavy fighting in Montenegro and parts of Bosnia and Croatia, both by local Chetniks and by local Partizans. This is where I need to mention another Chetnik subfaction: Serbian Orthodox* religious/nationalist militias based on the Chetnik movement that existed before the war, which itself called back to the legacy of Serbian resistance fighters against A-H occupation during WW1. This was the Chetnik group which Ruth joined. Fanatical and ruthless (pun not intended), hated the Nazis, but also hated just about anyone who wasn't sided with them. Killed a lot Ustaše forces, saved a lot of innocent people, and also killed a lot of innocent people. They mostly fought the Ustaše, 21st SS Division "Skenderbeg" active on Kosovo, and the Communists, but they relied on and cooperated with UK and USA, who'd wrangle them into fighting the Nazis directly every now and again. Nominally under the command of Draža Mihajlović, but local commanders weren't above ignoring (or outright forging) his orders to do whatever the gently caress they wanted, and it often wasn't pretty. *There were Catholic and Muslim Chetniks, and not in insignificant numbers, at least at the start of the war, but nobody likes to talk about them much since they don't fit anyone's favored narrative, really, and as a result, it's hard to find actual information about them. Somewhat worth noting, as all this was happening, most of my family was in NDH (Independent State of Croatia, under Ustaše control) and desperately fighting as a part of the local Partizans to avoid being murdered by the Ustaše - who were well on their way towards getting the 100k Serb civilians killed achievement (with good starting progress towards genociding the Romani in their territory, too) The Partizans established the "Republic of Užice", while the Chetniks set up their own base of operations on the mountain Suvobor, in particular its highland Ravna Gora. A civil government was established, (and the Partizans also set up newspapers and a ammo factory) and with most of the German army off to fight the Soviets, the coalition had more than enough force to fight off recapture attempts. Unfortunately, there was foul play on both sides of the coalition, which lead to a breakdown in relations, weakening of the overall military force due to a lack of cooperation, and causing losses in popular support (which kinda needed to be really drat high to overcome the fear of being brutally murdered by the Nazis) for both groups. This was followed up on by the German puppet government in Serbia led by a fascist shitheads like Milan Nedić and Dimitrije Ljotić engaging in its own propaganda effort, especially against the communists (imagine everything the Cold War US government would blame hippie pinkos for, and you'll mostly have the right picture. The words "Serbian Soviet Socialist Republic", "corrupting the youth", and "foreign agents" were often uttered, with a layer of "ENEMIES OF THE SERBIAN PEASANTS", "JEEEEWS", and "EVIL INTELLECTUALS" added on top), while the German forces regrouped, and brought in reinforcements from Greece and the Eastern Front. Somewhat worth noting, as all this was happening, most of my family was still in NDH and still desperately fighting as a part of the local Partizans to avoid being murdered by the Ustaše - who were enjoying their Steam cheevo, and figuring out what achievement they were going to try to get next (spoilers: it was more of the same) Here's a map that can give you an idea of the sheer scale of the fighting involved in Yugoslavia in September - It shows the land under Partizan control, and while it's rather-over optimistic about the extent of their reach, it's a nice gauge of where resistance was strong enough to prevent Nazis and/or Ustaše from doing whatever the gently caress they wanted. Some of that stuff was actually under Chetnik control, and some of the stuff under Chetnik control isn't on the map (since it's not a map of stuff under Chetnik control  ) By November, Chetnik and Partizan relations have mostly broken down, and fighting between them errupted. The Partizans managed to fight off the Chetniks and started surrounding Mihajlović's HQ on Ravna Gora, but then a major German offensive began, supported by Ustaše, and the two sides agreed to a truce because the alternative was suicidally stupid. The Nazis were making rapid gains, and in every place they defeated the resistance, they made a point of massacring the local populations. Utterly demoralized by this, Mihajlović had a meeting with German representatives, which was actually recorded and its contents are known today. Basically, he groveled poo poo along the lines of "I totally didn't want to attack your garrisons, I swear, but they were so weak they were just asking to be attacked, and better for me to do it than the communists, you know? Look, I'm a man of honor, I know when I'm beaten and I know the rules of war, but I had to do something about commies gaining popularity by fighting you. All I wanted was to go protect the people from the Ustaše, I have no grudge against you guys." The Germans called him out for being full of poo poo, but still eventually worked out a deal to fight the Partizans with him because hey, by all means, go die for us. The Chetniks handed over a bunch of captured Partizans to the Nazis, who promtly shot them, and joined the Nazis in the effort to stamp out the Communists. To the surprise of nobody except Draža Mihajlović, quite a few Chetniks reacted to this with "Aw, hell no" and deserted, most of the deserters joining the Partizans, especially once Tito reached out to the rank-and-file Chetniks with a "You guys are cool despite your leader being an rear end, come join us and keep kicking Nazi butt". Under combined assault, the Partizans were forced to retreat to Montenegro and then to Bosnia, and continue the fight in a much more guerilla-like fashion. Draža Mihajlović and his loyalist Chetniks pulled back to Ravna Gora, where they licked their wounds and made plans for the future. The German retribution against the civilian populace was brutal, especially against Serbs and the Romani (most of the Jewish people in Yugoslavia lived in Belgrade and were easily rounded up long before that), and utterly ruthless. And even the slightest hint of resistance was followed up with ever growing escalation of mass murder. Here's a poem about the most notorious of these incidents, it's a better way to sum them up than anything I could say here in a hundred times as many words. Tens of thousands died. (this is in addition to the jolly fun stuff already going on in NDH) Between the much stronger German force, terror sowed, and the shock of decisive and visible military defeat (unlike the "just rolled over" of the initial invasion), Serbia was for most part firmly under Nazi control from that point on. People who wanted to join the resistance usually headed for Bosnia and Montenegro to take part the fighting there. There's a lot of complex history after this, but it can be summed up somewhat more easily. Draža Mihajlović to some small extent realized his fuckup and sometimes actually fought the Nazis, but still focused primarily on the Partizans, with his organization growing ever more nationalist and prone to "punishing" "traitors", including civilian populace. Local militias* would nominally pledge allegiance to him to get some of those sweet, sweet Allied supply drops, but mostly did their own thing regardless of what he wanted. Early in the war, the Communist leadership tried to violently maintain more ideological purity than it was really capable of, with people fearing purges preemptively deserting to the Chetniks (some really, really, really bad poo poo went down in Montenegro, like, war of extermination between the two sides level of bad), but unlike the Chetniks, they actually learned from their mistakes and focused on the "fighting the Nazis" part of the war, and they were drat good at it, considering the circumstances. The Chetnik movement eventually split, one side of the split outright siding with the Nazis, the ones remaining under Mihajlović still trying to undecisevely do a little bit of everything, while foreign support grew ever smaller (whoopsie, I completely wiped the population of some Muslim villages, hehe, no big deal, right? Guys? Guys?) Even saving several hundred downed US airmen can only get you so far. *looters and murderous chucklefucks, mostly, but also armed communities just trying to survive and aware that they needed a bigger fish to help them out and the Partizans weren't around Ruth returned to USA during a prisoner exchange (she was arrested for espionage/terrorism by the Nazis, and just barely managed to avoid the chopping block while imprisoned in a concentration camp) and worked on supporting the people she fought with, eventually setting up a fund for Serbian war orphans who ended up in USA. I have no idea if she was aware of the darker sides of the movement. Roughly one million dead Yugoslavs later, the war ended, and the remaining Chetniks (and everyone suspected of being one, or being unfortunate enough to have sided with them for the sake of sheer survival) were hunted down and executed, blamed for both the poo poo they did and poo poo they didn't do, and the poo poo they did right being either claimed by the Partizans as their own, or burried as deep as possible. Interestingly, de Gaulle was a big fan of Draža Mihajlović, tried to rescue him from Yugoslavia, and refused any interaction with Tito after he heard about Draža's execution. I guess he saw him as a Yugoslav version of himself or something? Doesn't really say good things about him, tbh. In my view, the Chetnik movement turned poo poo fast, and stayed that way, but a surprisingly large number of decent people were associated with it. And that was my overly long post #whatever in these threads. By the way, isn't WW2 lovely? All these insane numbers of people being brutally murdered add up to but a drop in the sea of blood that World War 2 represented.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 00:27
|
|
|
Anyone have recommendations on books, blogs, podcasts, whatever for the Chinese theater in WW2? I'm trying to bone up on it fast for a personal project.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 00:33
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Handguns around the turn of the century, especially gentlemen's small arms, were hilariously underpowered by modern standards. Lots of stuff chambered in .25 ACP, .32 ACP, etc. Interesting. Why were they underpowered? Lack of modern medicine made it easier to die from a bullet wound? Or was a gentleman from a century ago less likely to care about ballistics? Question for the thread: so before World War 2, did militaries screen applicants/conscripts for mental health problems? If so, what did they do? I noticed that one of the things that made you a '4-F' by the modern selective service system is "having a mood disorder that lasted longer than six months and/or required medication." I guess I was thinking about Apsley Cherry-Garrard and how he was sent home during World War 1 for mental health problems. (Being rich probably helped.) And of course mental health as we know it only got started in the early 1900s by Freud - while "psychology" was something academics had been talking about before that, (believe it or not some of what Nietzsche wrote can be thought of as an early attempt at psychology) I'm not sure how widely their ideas circulated beyond academia. Basically I'm wondering if this is why the HEYGAL crew (for instance) was drunk all the time, because concepts of mental health didn't exist yet
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 00:34
|
|
|
Fuligin posted:Anyone have recommendations on books, blogs, podcasts, whatever for the Chinese theater in WW2? I'm trying to bone up on it fast for a personal project. I actually stumbled upon a book called "Kangzhan: Guide to Chinese Ground Forces 1937-45", which I should be receiving soon. I'll let you know how it is once I take a look at it. Book blurb posted:Kangzhan: Guide to Chinese Ground Forces 1937-45 is the first ready reference to the organization and armament of Chinese ground forces during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45. The work integrates Chinese, Japanese and Western sources to examine the details of the structure and weapons of the period. Recent scholarship has contributed greatly to our understanding of China's role in the war, but this is the first book to deal with the bottom-level underpinnings of this massive army, crucial to an understanding of its tactical and operational utility. Fuligin posted:That looks perfect. Libraries, don't fail me now... I should get my copy in about 2 weeks, 3 tops. Jobbo_Fett fucked around with this message at 01:02 on Jan 19, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 00:40
|
|
|
That looks perfect. Libraries, don't fail me now...
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 00:46
|
|
|
Ice Fist posted:Holy poo poo, one of those videos is 'reach your hand out and touch the ground' levels of low altitude. Holy poo poo, he needs to pull up to get over that Ju 88
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 00:47
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:Interesting. Why were they underpowered? Lack of modern medicine made it easier to die from a bullet wound?
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 01:02
|
|
|
A lot of engineers and metallurgists have spent the last hundred years figuring out how to give it more dakka.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 01:37
|
|
|
darthbob88 posted:We've got better gunpowder and stronger guns than they did. I expect Cyrano or somebody can provide actual numbers for a cap-and-ball revolver vs a new 1911, but modern guns can reach higher chamber pressures than the old timers could, which translates to higher velocities and powers. Nothing scientific but a nice video of Skallagrim shooting a replica roman helmet with different guns from black powder to modern loads. Basically nearly any firearm (black or modern) will penetrate the helmet, black powder pistols have a higher chance of not penetrating but they can still make any day unpleasant with the dent.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 02:20
|
|
|
Chillyrabbit posted:Nothing scientific but a nice video of Skallagrim shooting a replica roman helmet with different guns from black powder to modern loads. I like the nice round dent the .45ACP left on the second helmet.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 02:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 22, 2024 10:34 |
|
|
Wasn't the re-introduction of armor for infantry more about schrapnel than actual improvements in armor technology? Granted, since then, we've made some real improvements towards actually stopping bullets, but generally if you're going to just stand still out in the open as an easy target, there's not too much that can save you from a bullet.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2017 02:35
|
|
