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Phanatic posted:And they also run very high-octane avgas. The unlimited-class air racers use 115/145 that's made only for them. My incredulity isn't based on the claimed compression ratio, it was based on them actually being able to operate at that ratio without high equivalent octane numbers or blowing the conrods right out of the cylinders. I agree...I think the answer is basically that the allied late war radials were basically de-tuned quite a bit to increase serviceability, which kind of skews the numbers a bit. The R-2800 for example was pushed up to 2,500 hp during the war (with....limited success) and past 2,800 hp postwar (successfully) with fairly minimal changes to the design.
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Jan 31, 2017 15:56
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chitoryu12 posted:I was browsing The Chow Line, a Facebook page that makes reproduction US military rations and other items, and they had this picture from WW1. Sounds like the same thing as ship biscuit. Just one more great thing about being a soldier in wwi I guess
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Jan 31, 2017 16:24
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Oo oo are we talking about WW1 food? Denmark was neutral* during WW1, instead our brand of robber barons made bank creating incredibly lovely quality tinned food for the field armies, which is why our historians refer to the old money families as "Gullasch barons"  *largely, a sizable amount of jutes went and fought for the Germans.
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Jan 31, 2017 17:20
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Tias posted:Oo oo are we talking about WW1 food? Argentina did mad bank with it by selling tons of beef. Brazil too but on a lower scale.
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Jan 31, 2017 17:24
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bewbies posted:I agree...I think the answer is basically that the allied late war radials were basically de-tuned quite a bit to increase serviceability, which kind of skews the numbers a bit. The R-2800 for example was pushed up to 2,500 hp during the war (with....limited success) and past 2,800 hp postwar (successfully) with fairly minimal changes to the design. You've also got stuff like war emergency power for allied engines, whereas I bet that Japanese engine was effectively running WEP constantly.
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Jan 31, 2017 18:01
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bewbies posted:I agree...I think the answer is basically that the allied late war radials were basically de-tuned quite a bit to increase serviceability, which kind of skews the numbers a bit. The R-2800 for example was pushed up to 2,500 hp during the war (with....limited success) and past 2,800 hp postwar (successfully) with fairly minimal changes to the design. What the heck, I'll post in here too and not just in another thread. One thing to consider is that it's a very late war engine - the Double Wasp and Griffon were flying by the time the Homare was on the testbed. Wiki (I know, I know) says '41 for it being on the testbed, which makes it a contemporary of the *Crecy*. So we're looking at a very late aircraft piston engine, but design and early testing done before Japan's fortunes and resources started getting depleted. At the same time, time of testbed to being in service says they were basically flying prototypes which, well, the sucker was never very reliable, was it? Okay, let's see... 2180 cubic inches. Contrast that comes to mind isn't any of the radials, but the Napier Sabre, which was a great low altitude engine too and I'd argue one of the biggest monsters of the war once they got it sorted. So let's take the Sabre's late war power figure of 3k horsepower at 4000rpm ... well, that's probably unrealistic for the Homare given its 150mm stroke; same piston speeds would give the Homare 3200rpm, maybe a little more. So call it 4k ft/lbs of torque for the Sabre at 4k RPM and 13psi over ambient or 1.9bar absolute. DB605s went from about 1.8-1.9 bar on C3 good fuel (around 100/130) to 1.4-1.5 on B4 87 octane... if you call the Homare about the same naturally aspirated torque as the Sabre (maybe a little more due to compression, whatever, this is a back of the envelope calculation) and 1.5bar absolute boost (seems realistic if they're pushing it and they didn't do it much in service) and 3200rpm, voila, 1900hp. Complete back of the envelope, yeah the Homare is air cooled instead of liquid cooled, all sorts of other reasons why it's not apples to apples. I acknowledge all that. I'm just saying that even given the fuel issues it seems *possible* if you take a high strung engine as a given.
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Jan 31, 2017 18:01
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chitoryu12 posted:This doesn't seem like a very sanitary way to distribute bread. Considering where you're going to be eating it, it's probably not that noticeable.
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Jan 31, 2017 18:31
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HEY GAIL posted:everyone who lives does, the unlucky ones are dead Maybe he meant "dude got laid more than naval minefields"? 
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Jan 31, 2017 19:23
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OwlFancier posted:Considering where you're going to be eating it, it's probably not that noticeable. If it's not covered in (a) mud, (b) flies, or (c) both, you're better off than a lot of others who've come before you.
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Jan 31, 2017 19:51
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Jobbo_Fett posted:The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer was pretty Reminds me a bit of Henry Metelmann's war memoirs if anyone is looking for interesting WW2 German soldier memoirs now.
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Jan 31, 2017 20:29
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. Advances, retreats, truck convoys being strafed and bombed by IL-2s, his foxhole buddy trying to be macho and try to counter-snipe a sniper with an MG-34 only to get shot in the face with an explosive round...
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I will note the original asker asked explicitly for soviet diaries as a counterpart to Krengel's stuff, and only more German accounts have been mentioned. 
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Jan 31, 2017 20:33
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I think sadly this will be the closest we'll ever get.
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Jan 31, 2017 20:34
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spectralent posted:Following the Krengel saga I've become interested in diaries, so, does anyone have any good recommendations, in particular for the eastern front and asia? I liked the ground-level, at-the-time aspect of it, particularly, so stuff that's "the krengel diary but for a soviet soldier" or whatever would be fantastic.
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Jan 31, 2017 21:26
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Still pretty great though, I've spent some serious time leafing through that site.
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Jan 31, 2017 21:48
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Fangz posted:I will note the original asker asked explicitly for soviet diaries as a counterpart to Krengel's stuff, and only more German accounts have been mentioned. Memoir rather than diary (written in 1962). https://www.amazon.com/800-Days-Eastern-Front-Remembers/dp/0700615172
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Jan 31, 2017 22:02
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Fangz posted:I will note the original asker asked explicitly for soviet diaries as a counterpart to Krengel's stuff, and only more German accounts have been mentioned. A looooooooot more German memoirs and diaries got translated into English during the Cold War. Not only was politics the way it was, but it was also much easier for books in Germany to get published in a way accessible to the rest of the world. gently caress, if you spoke German there were even more available. Even for a Russian speaker, however, those memoirs were thin on the ground outside the USSR. Again, politics and access. Politics bites twice here as for a huge chunk of that period you have a lot of people very concerned with allowing things to be published that don't show the Party, it's leadership, or the way the Great Patriotic War was conducted (which reflects on both of the above) in a poor light. A German (or American, or Brit etc) can write pretty openly about how hosed the military could be and how Lt. Col. Dipshit did something stupid and got a bunch of people killed or whatever, but that might not be the case under Stalin or Khrushchev. edit: maybe look for translated Polish diaries? A lot of them fought with the Red Army and a not insignificant number of those ended up leaving after the war because of politics. Also I would look at Russian Jews. A lot of them got kicked out a few decades later, so you're going to see more people from that group with the ability to ignore Soviet censors.
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Jan 31, 2017 22:50
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So, tankettes seems to me like a pretty good and viable way to get more armour on the ground that can help spearhead breaks in the lines and swoosh around, murdering enemy infantry who might not be able to get anti-tank weapons to combat them. What made them non-viable (and judging from this and the last thread, which I've now finally caught up with after a couple of months of pretty intense reading, is logistics)?
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Jan 31, 2017 23:52
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Greggster posted:So, tankettes seems to me like a pretty good and viable way to get more armour on the ground that can help spearhead breaks in the lines and swoosh around, murdering enemy infantry who might not be able to get anti-tank weapons to combat them. They offer very little in terms of defense for the crew, being defeated by heavy machine guns. Tankettes don't always have turrets, and their offensive weapons are usually machine guns and sometimes 20mm cannons. Basically, there are maybe 2 conflicts where the tankette performed "well" and that's probably stretching it. The start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, due to China being very limited in terms of armoured vehicles. The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, because they didn't have anything to really counter armoured vehicles of any kind. http://i.imgur.com/7WWQJ2d.gifv Jobbo_Fett fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Feb 1, 2017 |
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Jan 31, 2017 23:57
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Greggster posted:So, tankettes seems to me like a pretty good and viable way to get more armour on the ground that can help spearhead breaks in the lines and swoosh around, murdering enemy infantry who might not be able to get anti-tank weapons to combat them. Tankettes are really vulnerable to MG fire. You can't be small and zippy with heavy armor. Note that the.50 MG was originally designed as an anti-tank weapon. Even AP bullets for any service rifle will rip through the half inch or so of armor that a tankette is going to have on a lot of surfaces. Then you've got things like clusters of grenades and all the other ad hoc weapons that infantry used to kill real deal, full sized tanks
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Jan 31, 2017 23:58
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In terms of loss of life, loss of land and just overall loving up, what was the biggest military blunder of all time?
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Feb 1, 2017 01:35
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OldTennisCourt posted:In terms of loss of life, loss of land and just overall loving up, what was the biggest military blunder of all time? World War II, for the Germans
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Feb 1, 2017 01:43
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OldTennisCourt posted:In terms of loss of life, loss of land and just overall loving up, what was the biggest military blunder of all time? In terms of biggest discrete event, Napoleon deciding to invade Russia.
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Feb 1, 2017 02:03
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Greggster posted:So, tankettes seems to me like a pretty good and viable way to get more armour on the ground that can help spearhead breaks in the lines and swoosh around, murdering enemy infantry who might not be able to get anti-tank weapons to combat them. Tankettes are cheap, yes, but everything has a price. 1. The vehicle is very small and light, its engine is small and light to match. This means that mobility isn't exactly fantastic. Tankettes couldn't pass through even the simplest anti-tank obstacles. 2. Small means you can fit only two guys in there. One of them has to be the driver, which means the other has to be the commander, loader, and gunner all in one. This is a tough job, especially if you're not commanding just one tankette, but a platoon. Oh, also you have no radio, so have fun waving flags out of the hatch in between firing and loading the machinegun. 3. That light weight means you have a centimeter of steel around you, probably less. That's armour vulnerable to rifle caliber armour piercing bullets. Maybe even regular bullets, if you're unlucky! 4. Odds are you have no rotating turret. Even if you're fighting absolutely destitute bandits/bushmen with no anti-tank weapons at all, they can still dig a ditch for you to get stuck in (see #1) and set you on fire from directions where you can't shoot them. 5. Tankettes are armed with rifle caliber machineguns (aside from a handful of Polish tankettes that had 20 mm autocannons), so your weapon is completely useless against even the lightest fortifications.
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Feb 1, 2017 02:07
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Ensign Expendable posted:Tankettes are cheap, yes, but everything has a price. tl;dr - arguably less useful than two guys carrying the equivalent MG by hand.
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Feb 1, 2017 02:14
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Cyrano4747 posted:tl;dr - arguably less useful than two guys carrying the equivalent MG by hand. And given a truck that can carry more than 2 guys and is probably more economic on fuel. And easier to repair/produce.
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Feb 1, 2017 02:19
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Shoulda just had columns of armoured cars swooshing around the enemy lines and blowing stuff up if you ask me.
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Feb 1, 2017 02:25
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What about the Wiesel AWC, currently in service with the Bundeswher?
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Feb 1, 2017 02:36
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Generally it seems like, yeah, where tankettes might have found a use, armoured cars or half tracks seem to do the same job better.
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Feb 1, 2017 02:39
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Mycroft Holmes posted:What about the Wiesel AWC, currently in service with the Bundeswher? Seems like an ok multi-purpose vehicle, but it apparently only has defenses to withstand small arms fire. So, not good against anything.
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Feb 1, 2017 02:41
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Mycroft Holmes posted:What about the Wiesel AWC, currently in service with the Bundeswher? I guess the concept there is to have a NBC-resistant mortar carrier/TOW missile launcher/whatever that can be dropped by helicopter.
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Feb 1, 2017 02:49
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Seems like an ok multi-purpose vehicle, but it apparently only has defenses to withstand small arms fire. So, not good against anything. Yeah I think it's meant to be like a tracked Humvee. They built a version with a 120mm mortar 
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Feb 1, 2017 02:51
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OldTennisCourt posted:In terms of loss of life, loss of land and just overall loving up, what was the biggest military blunder of all time? the entirety of the seventeenth century, thank you and namaste
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Feb 1, 2017 03:16
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OldTennisCourt posted:In terms of loss of life, loss of land and just overall loving up, what was the biggest military blunder of all time? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_Khwarezmia Don't kill the messenger
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Feb 1, 2017 03:50
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OldTennisCourt posted:In terms of loss of life, loss of land and just overall loving up, what was the biggest military blunder of all time? The Paraguayan war of 1864-1870 was impressively disastrous in its results.
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Feb 1, 2017 03:56
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OldTennisCourt posted:In terms of loss of life, loss of land and just overall loving up, what was the biggest military blunder of all time? Yang Guozhong, prime minister of Emperor Xuanzong, convinced the emperor to fire all non-Han generals, prompting the An-Lushan revolt. While the Tong Pass was strongly fortified, the rebels were unable to advance any further, but Yang ordered the execution of the generals in charge of the pass, and then ordered the replacement to leave the pass and attack An Lushan's army. The Imperials were badly defeated, and An-Lushan advanced into the imperial heartland, sacked the capital, and overran much of the empire. Estimates of the death toll range from 10 million to 36 million, although the latter is based on official censuses, which only recorded people removed from the tax rolls, which could represent a number of things, not just casualties. Eventually the rebels were pushed back and the Tang dynasty restored, although Yang wasn't around to see the victory. He was lynched by angry soldiers during the flight from Chang'An, who then forced the emperor to execute his favorite concubine (Yang's cousin) and then let the troops massacre most of Yang's family, so angry were they at him. sullat fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Feb 1, 2017 |
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Feb 1, 2017 04:14
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OldTennisCourt posted:In terms of loss of life, loss of land and just overall loving up, what was the biggest military blunder of all time? I think a lot of falls of dynasties and civil wars during Chinese history could pretty well qualify, but the Goguryeo-Sui War is maybe the most egregious. The Sui Dynasty finally reunifies China after it'd been broken up for centuries, then goes and attacks one of its neighbors, loses its entire army in the process and collapses again shortly afterwards. Most people haven't heard of the Sui, and that's probably because the entire dynasty barely lasts 25 years.
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Feb 1, 2017 04:17
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Ensign Expendable posted:3. That light weight means you have a centimeter of steel around you, probably less. That's armour vulnerable to rifle caliber armour piercing bullets. Maybe even regular bullets, if you're unlucky! I learned this the hard way in Combat Mission: Fortress Italy when my lovely Italian tankettes were taken out by side shots from Garands 
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Feb 1, 2017 04:52
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Koramei posted:I think a lot of falls of dynasties and civil wars during Chinese history could pretty well qualify, but the Goguryeo-Sui War is maybe the most egregious. The Sui Dynasty finally reunifies China after it'd been broken up for centuries, then goes and attacks one of its neighbors, loses its entire army in the process and collapses again shortly afterwards. Most people haven't heard of the Sui, and that's probably because the entire dynasty barely lasts 25 years. Question (that sounds Orientalist as I'm forming it, but I gotta know): are the sources available on this stuff more reliable than, say, the Iliad or the Song of Roland?
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Feb 1, 2017 05:00
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Question (that sounds Orientalist as I'm forming it, but I gotta know): are the sources available on this stuff more reliable than, say, the Iliad or the Song of Roland? Guarded answer from a non-expert: yes. I won't ever claim to be well-informed on Chinese historiography, but in general many aspects of the Chinese historical record during the Bronze to Medieval age are on the whole usually better maintained than its counterparts in Europe, probably due to its higher state centralization and the prevalence of a literate scholar-gentry that highly valued "the classics." Sima Qian, who lived ca. 100 BC and who created the Records of the Grand Historian, is basically the Herodotus of Chinese history,* having written a sweeping summary of Chinese history from pre-historic times up until the Han. During the initial stages of Chinese modernization in the 1870s-1900s AD, many of these early dynasties were regarded as being wholly mythic– there was no Shang or Xia dynasty as much as there was no Pangu birthed from a cosmic egg, no snake-woman Nuwa who repaired heaven and taught humans civilization, and no Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. However, the revelation of the famous Oracle Bones to archaeologists along with other discoveries eventually led to the Shang Dynasty's official recognition as being a thing that really existed ca. 1600-1000 BC, with many of the general claims of Sima Qian, such as its capital's location, confirmed. The detail and the transmission of this historical record gets much better as you go further forwards in time. The Sui was around the same time as when the Carolingians were still making a name for themselves, and by that time the practice of how to write history rather than myth was very well defined among the literati. However, like any other history the Chinese tradition is not a perfect recollection of events. Most histories, like Sima Qian's, were official ones sponsored by a dynasty, which always paints them in a favorable light. They also tended to focus on "Great Man" portrayals of events- this is reflected in how the Records themselves, along with most other historical chronicles are in the form of a bunch of biographies or topics rather than a chronological narrative. Also, like any other pre-modern history, moralizing and supernatural explanations are often considered to be true, and numbers are often inflated to emphasize how huge something is or to discredit your enemies. This also discounts stuff like the historical fiction later written such as the Romance of The Three Kingdoms, where the events are based on historical accounts, but turned into conflicts between superheroic figures. *This equivalency could also be given to Confucius (550-479 BC), who among many other things is often credited with editing and compiling the even older Spring and Autumn Annals, a chronicle of the State of Lu over 250-odd years.
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Feb 1, 2017 06:29
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They're only Herodotus comparisons if they finish telling preposterous stories with "I did not witness this but I was told it by some guy I met while drinking and I choose to believe it is reliable".
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Feb 1, 2017 09:36
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