|
Vincent Van Goatse posted:This actually happened at the tail end of World War Two. Well, it wasn't a revolver, it was a M1911 automatic.
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 11:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 18:26 |
|
|
JcDent posted:Just... Why? The main advantage was improved air cooling (due to the whole engine block whirling around) and a good power-to-weight ratio compared to radials. Rotaries had a pretty hard limit on how big you could make them though - once metallurgy advanced enough and people solved the cooling problem on radials they totally superseded rotaries, but this didn't happen until after the war.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 11:37
|
|
|
You also had a lot of potential energy stored in that big spinning mass of metal, so it worked like a flywheel and made the power ramp up and down in a smooth, relatively predictable curve. That isn't to say it wasn't comical.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 12:45
|
|
|
Rotary engines were also good for the pilots because all that oil that flew out of them into their faces gave them constant diarrhea, keeping their intestines sparkling clean.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 12:59
|
|
|
On the subject of WW1, what shape did infantry( and cavalry) tactics before everything gridlocked into the entrench-artillery-charge model? Did people just walk or ride as fast as they could and hope to encircle the enemy? How did combined arms work, if at all? I'm realizing that I have a very fixed view of what WW1 looks like, and no idea about how people did things immediately before or after.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 13:03
|
|
|
Tias posted:On the subject of WW1, what shape did infantry( and cavalry) tactics before everything gridlocked into the entrench-artillery-charge model? NB. I caveat the below as 'broadly right but probably wrong on specifics' No such thing as combined arms as we would understand the term - tanks and planes don't exist, cavalry exist but as an exploitation force rather than a supporting arm to the infantry, artillery exists but unless you have fixed positions and prepared phone lines heading back then there isn't any way to actually co-ordinate (barring a few instances in the Battle of Mons where field guns were in the line and firing over open sights). Infantry would generally fight in extended order (think - a Napoleonic line but only one deep and not actually touching elbows with the guys on either side of you) but would be lying down and conforming to the terrain rather than parade-ground lines. Scouting parties and patrols were a thing and we'd recognise them as using methods we'd call modern small-arms tactics, but it took a while for people to accept that the Attack now consisted of using those tactics writ-large rather than making closed formation assaults. e: when I say 'planes don't exist' I mean that they exist in the form of an entire army having a dozen at disposal for reconnaissance and don't exist as far as the tactical battlefield was concerned. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Feb 20, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 13:48
|
|
|
Tias posted:On the subject of WW1, what shape did infantry( and cavalry) tactics before everything gridlocked into the entrench-artillery-charge model? WWI prior to the trench stalemate looked a lot like war as we would know it now, with the big exceptions of very little in the way of battlefield communications, that artillery was still direct firing and that armies were absolutely enormous. The biggest problem of WWI armies was finding the enemy, and relaying that information to people who could make a decision. Read any accounts of generals up to, say, the Battle of the Marne and you'll find a whole of guessing about where the enemy might be and what they are up to. Cavalry was vital both for spotting and for screening enemy spotters - something you'll see a lot in accounts is "we encountered the enemy's cavalry screen", which might indicate a huge army behind it, or it might be nothing. The earliest use of airpower was for reconnaissance to fill this huge capability gap, and the first pilots were generally cavalrymen due to their pre-existing skills in spotting and quickly sketching maps. Once troops made contact they were fighting in open order with rifles and machine guns, supported by artillery firing in flat trajectory over open sights. The only shells at that point were shrapnel, very effective against troops in the open, not so much against those dug in, hence the rush to make HE shells later on that ended up with the British sitting on a bunch of duds. IIRC Cavalry basically always fought dismounted with carbines, with the possible exception of French cuirassiers, who looked they fell out of 1805 complete with shiny breastplates and horsehair helmets. Maneuver and encirclement was indeed the order of the day, mostly for the fact that attempting a frontal assault was absolutely murderous at the start of the war. It really can't be overstated how bloody the first months of WWI before the trench stalemate set in - we're talking hundreds of thousands of dead within weeks, because it turns out advancing in the open against breech loading, rifled artillery and machine guns is pretty goddamn nasty.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 14:05
|
|
|
for a (definitely ahistorical, possibly highly inaccurate) example come see the opening action of the Great Goon War, The Battle of Saint Croissants, being played out now in LP! Entente High Command thread, observer thread linked in the OP.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 14:12
|
|
|
Tias is the perfidious Boche. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 14:20
|
|
|
MikeCrotch posted:IIRC Cavalry basically always fought dismounted with carbines, with the possible exception of French cuirassiers, who looked they fell out of 1805 complete with shiny breastplates and horsehair helmets. And German cavalry, because I remember seeing a photograph of a German Lancer impaling some poor bastard with his lance. Looked gruesomely out of place for WWI.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 14:30
|
|
|
Libluini posted:And German cavalry, because I remember seeing a photograph of a German Lancer impaling some poor bastard with his lance. Looked gruesomely out of place for WWI. Ah yeah, I remember accounts people being poo poo scared of Uhlans in a similar way others were of Cossacks.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 14:37
|
|
|
WW2 Data Cluster Munitions are dropping in for examination. How many flares, bombs, or other devices could each cluster munition carry? How did they work? What could the 500lb No.7 Mk I cluster projectile have modified to its external appearance and what did it change? All that and more at the blog!
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 15:00
|
|
|
I'm still baffled at the fact that they failed to grasp that advancing into MGs and modern rifles is a bad idea after Franco-Prussian war. On the other hand, with the lack of communication, they probably could not have done in any other way, otherwise someone would have done that somewhere. It's not like WWII where you see people getting stuff right even without a war to teach them (mainly Guderian and his love for combined arms that was inflamed in no small part by British and Soviet excercises). For example, I can easily imagine British not going with really stupid ideas about tanks. Not so with infantry warfare pre-WWi.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 15:05
|
|
|
JcDent posted:I'm still baffled at the fact that they failed to grasp that advancing into MGs and modern rifles is a bad idea after Franco-Prussian war. On the other hand, with the lack of communication, they probably could not have done in any other way, otherwise someone would have done that somewhere. They knew full well that those kind of tactics were going to lead to horrific casualties. That was just considered the cost of modern war. The lesson they learned from 1870, however, was that no army could sustain those kinds of losses. In their minds there would be a very brief, apocalyptically bloody campaign after which one of the armies would collapse and you would be in a situation like in 1871 where you just camp outside the enemy's capital, fight the odd franc tieur, and negotiate the terms of the final peace. What wasn't predicted was the devolvement into static warfare and the ability of fully mobilized industrial societies to absorb those kinds of casualties. edit: I can't source it now, but I vaguely recall reading something years ago about the Imperial German war plans flat out assuming something like a 40% casualty rate among front line troops for those decisive battles. That was a huge part of the pragmatic undercurrent to the cult of national sacrifice they cultivated after 1870.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 15:10
|
|
|
Thanks a lot, all! Feel free to continue the discussion, I've dug in with a description of the Battle of Cer, and holy hell was the opening maneuvers some ugly poo poo  thatbastardken posted:for a (definitely ahistorical, possibly highly inaccurate) example come see the opening action of the Great Goon War, The Battle of Saint Croissants, being played out now in LP! Yeah, I can't do that  I play a commander on the German side in that game, and my question was largely born out of what a horrific bloodbath it's already turning out to be.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 15:25
|
|
|
Could the franco-Prussian war have gone into trench war, and if not what was the difference? Was it just the size of the armies and better weapons making falling back and digging in a more permanent solution? If they thought that it would be incredibly bloody but done quick how'd they come up with the idea of falling back to entrenched lines without acknowledging it prewar as a possibility?
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 15:31
|
|
|
HEY GAIL posted:world war 1 aviators and aviatrices were The Zeppelin aviators are up there with astro/cosmonauts and SR-71 flight crews to me Another hilarious aspect of flyers of the time was that British flyers were often given elementary flight training, and then shoved straight into combat.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 15:36
|
|
|
Vincent Van Goatse posted:This actually happened at the tail end of World War Two. Well, it wasn't a revolver, it was a M1911 automatic. This happened in Vietnam and it's pretty loving metal. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 15:41
|
|
|
thatbastardken posted:for a (definitely ahistorical, possibly highly inaccurate) example come see the opening action of the Great Goon War, The Battle of Saint Croissants, being played out now in LP! I hope that none of my ancestors had the misfortune of being part of a military operation as thoroughly hosed as that game. We are currently busy fighting our way back into our own deployment zone while using up our second set of brigades. Also I misplaced all our heavy artillery.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 15:42
|
|
|
aphid_licker posted:I hope that none of my ancestors had the misfortune of being part of a military operation as thoroughly hosed as that game. We are currently busy fighting our way back into our own deployment zone while using up our second set of brigades. Also I misplaced all our heavy artillery. OPSEC!
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 15:48
|
|
|
xthetenth posted:Could the franco-Prussian war have gone into trench war, and if not what was the difference? Was it just the size of the armies and better weapons making falling back and digging in a more permanent solution? Let's talk about a force multiplier just as important as the machine gun or quick-firing artillery, and which first became easily-obtainable and viable for large-scale military use at about the same time.  Barbed wire is what turns a trench from a useful short-term fieldwork to increase your infantry's survivability as it defends a position for 24-48 hours* into a long-term living space for five million men. In a world with trenches but without barbed wire, you can by guile have large bodies of men approach enemy trenches quietly, under cover of smoke/fog/rain/darkness, or openly under cover of a suppressive artillery barrage, and set about the enemy with the bayonet and grenades before they know what's hit them. (Reference: Every battle between 1915 and 1918.) In a world with trenches with the most rudimentary of barbed wire fences in front of them, your large bodies of men cannot possibly get into the enemy's trenches without making such a palaver about it that the enemy's sentries will be alerted and they can take action to repel you before you get into the cover of their trench. Here is a man attempting to climb a simple barbed wire fence, with the advantages of not being in combat and not having to carry 40 pounds of shite on his back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0qxpgYY2Jw This is why my game has that wire-stealing mechanic in it for engineers; that's exactly what they were doing for the first winter of the war, until barbed wire production could be stepped up to meet the armies' demands. *yes I know about early modern sieges And yes, like a lot of things, the importance of barbed wire was a lesson available to be learned in 1905 thanks to the Russo-Japanese war (and earlier, if you happened to have been in the Boer War or gone to observe the Spanish-American War), and depressingly few people paid it any attention whatsoever. quote:If they thought that it would be incredibly bloody but done quick how'd they come up with the idea of falling back to entrenched lines without acknowledging it prewar as a possibility? It just kind of sort of happened. On the German side, they retreat from the Marne, they fall back across the Aisne and dug in; and then found that gently caress me, this a really difficult position to attack, so let's get as far forward as we can in northern France and occupy all their good industrial land, try to nab the Channel ports to gently caress with the BEF's supply lines, and then dig in for winter and hold on while we figure out what to do next. (And then it seemed that the Eastern front held better possibilities for success and helped shore up their liability of an ally, so then they spent 1915 focusing on offensives in the East and not giving an inch in the West.) On t'other side, everyone's exhausted from marching hither and yon hundreds of miles in the autumn, we don't have the strength or the munitions to break their trench line yet, so we'll just dig in for a few months, pull ourselves back together, and then we'll launch the big push that will surely puncture/break/rupture the enemy's line far enough to force him to launch a humiliating and demoralising retreat off all these really economically valuable bits of France! And it's okay, these are just temporary positions, so we needn't worry too much about wasting time and resources making them any more comfortable and protective than they absolutely need to be... Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Feb 20, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 16:03
|
|
|
Potentially silly question, but the old idea of 'throwing a carpet over the barbed wire' - is there a good explanation why that isn't workable, and so why the military was fixated with trying to cut barbed wire by shelling it?
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 16:19
|
|
|
Honestly the big difference in mentality in the war is that the huge stock of small howitzers made to fire directly and not powerful enough for indirect fire became rapidly obsolete. Pretty much everyone went to strip their fortresses looking for heavy guns.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 16:29
|
|
Fangz posted:Potentially silly question, but the old idea of 'throwing a carpet over the barbed wire' - is there a good explanation why that isn't workable, and so why the military was fixated with trying to cut barbed wire by shelling it? You are going to need a shitload of carpets.
|
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 16:30
|
|
|
xthetenth posted:Could the franco-Prussian war have gone into trench war, and if not what was the difference? Was it just the size of the armies and better weapons making falling back and digging in a more permanent solution? If they thought that it would be incredibly bloody but done quick how'd they come up with the idea of falling back to entrenched lines without acknowledging it prewar as a possibility? Essentially the differences were: 1. The armies involved were much, much smaller. One of the reasons WWI could go on as it did was because the combatants had instituted major reserve systems and ways of mobilising a huge chunk of their manpower for the army. Hence why you go from a decisive battle between ~300,000 troops in 1870 to over 2.5 million 44 years later. Not to mention that both sides had plenty of reserves at that time as well. Because of this the whole question of "what does victory look like?" becomes pertinent when it's clear that a decisive and crushing victory isn't possible like it was (twice!) in the Franco-Prussian war. 2. The French army got pretty apocalyptically beaten twice by the Prussian, including getting their king captured on the second go round. So any trench warfare would have been possible, but not using pront line troops and would only be delaying the inevitable. Think the end of the American Civil War when the Confederates starting digging in; caused a lot of casualties to the Union, but never really put the outcome in doubt.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 16:31
|
|
|
Hahaha King Napoleon III
|
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 16:33
|
|
|
Fangz posted:Potentially silly question, but the old idea of 'throwing a carpet over the barbed wire' - is there a good explanation why that isn't workable, and so why the military was fixated with trying to cut barbed wire by shelling it? OK, imagine enough rolls of carpet thick and heavy enough for a thousand men to get across a barbed wire fence. Now imagine the logistics of moving them from the factory to the Army's stores depot. Now imagine the logistics of moving them from the stores depot into the trenches. Now imagine someone trying to carry one of them up a ladder and over the top. Now imagine that he has to carry it 100 yards across rough ground. We'll be nice and excuse him from having to do this while being shot at. He's probably got five minutes, if he's lucky. Now imagine that he arrives at the enemy's wire belt and finds that it's 40 feet of solid entanglements from front to back, and possibly sunk into a wide haha so it's difficult to see until you nearly fall into it. It starts with a simple fence. Necessity is the mother of invention, and barbed wire is very, very, very necessary.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 16:45
|
|
|
Panzeh posted:Honestly the big difference in mentality in the war is that the huge stock of small howitzers made to fire directly and not powerful enough for indirect fire became rapidly obsolete. Pretty much everyone went to strip their fortresses looking for heavy guns. The French relied heavily on their 75mm , to the detriment of developing other types of artillery. It had a high rate of fire, it was very accurate, and it could employed rapidly but its trajectory was relatively flat (they still used it for indirect fire). The Germans entered the war with larger caliber guns and numerous super heavy siege pieces It's a generalization but the Germans preferred heavier, larger artillery, while the allies, following France's lead, preferred smaller guns (though they certainly used larger calibers as well, to include the fortress guns you mentioned).
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 16:54
|
|
|
I've seen some positively otherworldly pics of barbed wire obstacles. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 17:02
|
|
|
SeanBeansShako posted:You are going to need a shitload of carpets. Carpet bombing is the solution! 
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 17:11
|
|
|
Huh, thanks for the barbed wire posts, I'd never even considered it being important in how tactics evolved.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 17:19
|
|
|
Nenonen posted:Carpet bombing is the solution! It's been done. 4 engined bombers were used in a semi-tactical capability during the breakout from Normandy. Operation Cobra I think.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 17:20
|
|
|
Tias posted:Thanks a lot, all! Feel free to continue the discussion, I've dug in with a description of the Battle of Cer, and holy hell was the opening maneuvers some ugly poo poo I hope that we are allowed to go into each others threads once the battle is over.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 17:32
|
|
|
Trin Tragula posted:
Super crucial point not to be forgotten. We're accustomed to thinking of barbed ware in terms of a single roll on a wall or checkpoint, WW1 trench defences had enormous belts of the stuff. Soldiers weren't struggling to get around one loop of wire, they were finding themselves stuck at the edge of an entire field of the stuff and that's what 'unable to move forwards' meant.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 17:33
|
|
|
Koramei posted:Huh, thanks for the barbed wire posts, I'd never even considered it being important in how tactics evolved. Important enough that it could be useful even if you didn't actually have any...
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 17:40
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:It's been done. 4 engined bombers were used in a semi-tactical capability during the breakout from Normandy. Operation Cobra I think. And killed over 100 allied soldiers, including a 3-star general.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 17:43
|
|
|
Hunt11 posted:I hope that we are allowed to go into each others threads once the battle is over. That's what christmas truces are for!
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 17:46
|
|
|
Phanatic posted:And killed over 100 allied soldiers, including a 3-star general. In fairness they also destroyed the gently caress out of a bunch of German armored formations.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 17:47
|
|
|
SeanBeansShako posted:You are going to need a shitload of carpets. Hmm, maybe they can get like, a big spool of carpet. Or rather, make a loop of carpet spinning between two spools so you don't need as much carper. And make the carpet out of small metal links. Maybe have two carpets so you can turn. And put an engine on it so the carpet spins faster. And you might as well put an armoured box around the engine.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 17:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 18:26 |
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:Hmm, maybe they can get like, a big spool of carpet. Or rather, make a loop of carpet spinning between two spools so you don't need as much carper. And make the carpet out of small metal links. Maybe have two carpets so you can turn. And put an engine on it so the carpet spins faster. And you might as well put an armoured box around the engine. And then stick another roll of carpet on the front. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 18:08
|
|
