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Cyrano4747 posted:Not necessarily. They disperse a lot even in normal ops and boats are a lot more resilient wrt: nukes than cities. cost correct solution: nuke only the cities
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Mar 24, 2017 13:45
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System Metternich posted:
The solution to people in caves/tunnels in WW2 was to pump gasoline in and then ignite it. So nasty.
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Mar 24, 2017 14:04
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The US also got pretty good at using fuel air explosives on caves in Afghanistan IIRC, which would vacuum up all the oxygen. Tunnel fighting sounds exceedingly awful.
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Mar 24, 2017 14:26
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Also Vietnam. The general rule is that if you can make something lethal travel through the tunnel (shockwaves, fuel, gas, etc) then it's way preferable to do that than go down yourself.
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Mar 24, 2017 14:58
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Crazycryodude posted:If I understand the Airpower/Cold War thread right, it sounds like a (near) peer war would consist mainly of anything that moves and/or broadcasts a radio signal getting pasted by precision munitions fired from a bajillion miles away. For the first fifteen minutes. Then everybody runs out of precision munitions.
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Mar 24, 2017 15:20
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Stairmaster posted:Wouldn't a sea-skimming nuclear armed ASCM basically be immune to most shipboard defenses? It can just initiate beyond the range of the CIWS and basically guarantee a mission kill at the very least right? When ships in a CVBG are at war, as opposed to a photo op, they're pretty spread out. So if you prox outside of an escort's CIWS range you're probably not killing the carrier. And subsonic seaskimmers are right in CIWS's wheelhouse. But if you're relying on CIWS to stop missiles, you've really screwed up at some point. But in any event if nukes are on the table my money's on the carrier being killed by a nuclear torpedo VanSandman posted:We have gotten orders of magnitude better at chemical explosives since the battleship era. Nah. Chemical bonds only have so much energy, if you want orders of magnitude better than chemical explosives you're talking about nuclear bonds. Military explosives today are about maybe 50-80% more energy per mass than TNT. Some of the funky stuff in research circles like octanitrocubane might be twice as effective as TNT, if we can ever figure out how to make it properly. But certainly not orders of magnitude; that'd mean a hand grenade with the explosive force of a WWII 150 lb bomb.
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Mar 24, 2017 15:40
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However shaped charges have gotten vastly better.
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Mar 24, 2017 15:41
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Fish and Chimps posted:Has anyone posted about the Gunboat War between Denmark and Britain during the Napoleonic Wars? Nobody ever posts anything about gunboats sadly. Also, I am amused to see Sapping is coming back and is bigger and deadlier than ever.
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Mar 24, 2017 15:49
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Any plans to use modern mining vehicles to speed up sapping as Sweet Drill Tanks?
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Mar 24, 2017 15:58
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I was in a US MLRS artillery unit briefly before getting a medical discharge (go genetics!) around the time the Crimea kerfuffle started. I dunno how accurate it is but the general word of mouth was that we'd have a survival time of minutes in the event we actually fired on a russian position. Our guns were mobile though so maybe we'd fare better than the poor guys on the regular guns. Which reminds me, I also had a job as a re-enactor at a british fort in Canada. I crewed a muzzle-loading, smoothbore gun and we also had people on 12lber Armstrong guns, rifled and breechloading. By modern standards those things shot at a glacial pace, but compared to my smoothbore POS, well, I wouldn't want to be on the side that faced down Armstrongs. That era seems like a uniquely lovely era to soldier. You're brutally drilled in napoleonic doctrine but then everyone's got an accurate, possibly breechloading rifle and if you survive the small arms you get shot up with a loving machine gun or a breechloading field piece or some poo poo. We did real british firing drill with Snider-Enfields, shoulder-to-shoulder volleys and skirmishers forward and all, and man if two sides with those rifles actually did that to each other I can only imagine there'd be 90% casualties within like three volleys.
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Mar 24, 2017 16:21
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The British Army was never made for mainland European conflict against modern armies in the 19th century, even after changes and adaptions of the Crimean War. The musketry and artillery drill was taught more for coheision and training now. They'd usually face a non european forces equal in technology tactics or using slightly more obsolete methods and get away by the skin of their teeth due to diplomacy or luck.
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Mar 24, 2017 16:27
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SeanBeansShako posted:They'd usually face a non european forces equal in technology tactics or using slightly more obsolete methods and get away by the skin of their teeth due to diplomacy or luck. I mean, it's one of the cosily comforting constant themes of European history, past the mediaeval period at least, that the English/British Army was a little bit crap. Whether it's the Spanish in Hey Gal's period, the French in the later 17th century, the French in the Napoleonic period, or ze Germans in the 20th century, if it had ever come to a one-on-one land battle of the main Continental power of the time versus Britain, Britain would have gotten its clock cleaned. Hence the emphasis on making allies and preserving the balance of power.
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Mar 24, 2017 16:44
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My knowledge of modern war from my failure to be an effective Wargame general and I guess reading about the Syrian Civil War and other modern wars. Infantry go hide in a city, you spend a godawful amount of resources dislodging them with fucktons of artillery and napalm to shock and kill them while you mass up a horde of reservists to soak up bullets charging the city with your regulars and special forces follow behind to mop. or you just try to bypass the city with your tanks and choke their supply and pray to god you maintain air superiority or you bring enough effective AA to cover your tanks. Never could figure out how to get helicopters to work, they seemed to die stupidly easy so I guess avoid being deployed on a helicopter would extend your lifespan.
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Mar 24, 2017 16:45
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Jack2142 posted:My knowledge of modern war from my failure to be an effective Wargame general and I guess reading about the Syrian Civil War and other modern wars. This is true even in peacetime, helicopter crashes are a significant portion of US casualties these past two decades. Which is actually pretty heartwrenching, if you stop to think about the families of those poor kids. The airbase near me in NM had a crash this past week or so, that's a senseless death if ever there was one. vintagepurple fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 16:56
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Is it to late to add to the sapping/tunnel warfare discussion?
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Mar 24, 2017 17:46
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feedmegin posted:I mean, it's one of the cosily comforting constant themes of European history, past the mediaeval period at least, that the English/British Army was a little bit crap. Whether it's the Spanish in Hey Gal's period, the French in the later 17th century, the French in the Napoleonic period, or ze Germans in the 20th century, if it had ever come to a one-on-one land battle of the main Continental power of the time versus Britain, Britain would have gotten its clock cleaned. Hence the emphasis on making allies and preserving the balance of power. Got to love the crazy out of touch underdog, well except for the bloody Imperial policing. That isn't cool.
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Mar 24, 2017 17:53
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vintagepurple posted:This is true even in peacetime, helicopter crashes are a significant portion of US casualties these past two decades. Which is actually pretty heartwrenching, if you stop to think about the families of those poor kids. The airbase near me in NM had a crash this past week or so, that's a senseless death if ever there was one. If you think that is senseless death, imagine 4 military flight crew, 2 doctors, and a baby getting killed in a helicopter crash because a senior politician who wanted a photoshoot arranged a change of flight destination and overrode an experienced pilot who was arguing that the conditions were too dangerous to fly in.
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Mar 24, 2017 17:53
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my dad posted:If you think that is senseless death, imagine 4 military flight crew, 2 doctors, and a baby getting killed in a helicopter crash because a senior politician who wanted a photoshoot arranged a change of flight destination and overrode an experienced pilot who was arguing that the conditions were too dangerous to fly in. So what's the back story with the politician? That article just says they crashed in lovely fog after rescuing the baby off the road.
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Mar 24, 2017 18:38
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I was 100% sure that was going to be a Canadian story.
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Mar 24, 2017 18:37
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Cyrano4747 posted:So what's the back story with the politician? That article just says they crashed in lovely fog after rescuing the baby off the road. No articles in English, and the investigation went more-less "Nobody's guilty but the conveniently dead guys*", but basically, the minister of defence pressured two generals to speed things up, and they ended up pulling rank on the pilots. The generals got a slap on the wrist (no promotions for a year, boo-hoo), and by the time the investigation was done, the defense minister already lost his job over blatant sexism in a different incident, and it was all pushed under the carpet. *Conveniently dead guys happened to be an experienced crew who saved dozens of lives in search and rescue operations during a major flood about a year before the incident.
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Mar 24, 2017 18:53
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Stairmaster posted:Wouldn't a sea-skimming nuclear armed ASCM basically be immune to most shipboard defenses? It can just initiate beyond the range of the CIWS and basically guarantee a mission kill at the very least right? If you're going the sea skimming version then I think a nuclear torpedo would be probably even better. There is very little that people didn't cram a nuclear option into in the cold war. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 19:09
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OwlFancier posted:There is very little that people didn't cram a nuclear option into in the cold war. It's kind of funny, but in one of the openings to a Bond movie they're all worried about a Nuclear Torpedo exploding, and at the time I watched that I was convinced that was just a thing that Hollywood made up. But nope, it's a real thing.
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Mar 24, 2017 19:11
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Ice Fist posted:It's kind of funny, but in one of the openings to a Bond movie they're all worried about a Nuclear Torpedo exploding, and at the time I watched that I was convinced that was just a thing that Hollywood made up. But nope, it's a real thing. It almost happened too. Cuban Missile Crisis would have gone nuclear if a Russian sub fired its nuclear torpedo.
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Mar 24, 2017 19:16
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Pontius Pilate posted:Do we actually have any realistic estimates on how a carrier group would fare in a nuclear conflict or at least a conventional war with a peerish nation? Operation Crossroads is an encouraging sign but that was a hot second ago. Probably super loving dead super loving quick, unless they manage to dead the enemy even faster. Carrier groups just... don't have a defence against anti-carrier-group weapons that were developed during the cold war other than not being shot at by them. The Soviets put a bunch of money into marine-denial methods, which is why they make nuclear anti ship missiles, nuclear torpedoes for nuclear submarines, supersonic planes that carry supersonic nuclear anti carrier group missiles, all sorts of absurd poo poo. Even the conventional versions of those weapons are absurdly lethal. It's like tanks vs ATGMs except you only have like, a dozen tanks that can only go in the middle of a really wide open field, and the enemy has hundreds of ATGMs on planes, you can't afford to build any more tanks because your military procurement process is hideously inefficient and pork barreled to hell, you aren't on a war footing and seizing direct control of what industry you have left would be political hilarity, and if you lose all the tanks your ability to fight wars overseas is basically hosed. A real war between modern major powers would basically overturn the international political scene and because both the US and Russia are mostly using legacy equipment from when they were still in an arms race, it would basically be a fight until one side either launches the nukes or runs out of stuff to fight with. It would take some serious changes for either country to be able to actually start churning out equipment at a rate to replace losses like they did in WW2. With both nations being very big and having a lot of land-based airbases, I would probably suggest that barring nuclear exchange and/or major social, poltical, and economic upheaval to transition the countries into war economies, they would fight until both their navies are depleted and then be kind of stuck, because you can't win a war by just bombing people from halfway across the planet. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 19:20
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OwlFancier posted:Carrier groups just... don't have a defence against anti-carrier-group weapons that were developed during the cold war other than not being shot at by them. uh...what? The vast majority of surface capability in the US navy right now is designed to survive against those kinds of weapons. A cold war-era ASCM is easy meat for any modern surface combatant.
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Mar 24, 2017 19:42
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bewbies posted:uh...what? The vast majority of surface capability in the US navy right now is designed to survive against those kinds of weapons. A cold war-era ASCM is easy meat for any modern surface combatant. How do they defend against a bunch of KH22s? I wasn't aware there was anything that could credibly intercept them once launched, being as they have a flight ceiling and speed usually well in excess of any aircraft or AA missile? Like I get that the combination of SAMs and CIWS guns could shoot some of them down but when all it takes is one to severely damage if not outright sink a ship and the weapons are designed to be deployed at extreme range and en-masse without involving an opposing carrier, it seems like the person on the receiving end is probably not the one with the advantage. Hoping you can shoot down every one before it hits one of your very expensive carriers is... not a position I would like to be in. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 19:46
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OwlFancier posted:How do they defend against a bunch of KH22s? I wasn't aware there was anything that could credibly intercept them once launched? The Kh-22 is the size of a small plane, with the signature and expense to match. Any munition that is not low observable or well past hypersonic is not a very stressing target for any of the navy's modern missile systems. The ESSM for example was really designed around a requirement to defeat contemporary LO, maneuverable, nap of the earth ASCMs...a giant lofted 1960s-era plane-sized missile is a far less demanding target. If you're needing more standoff capability, any of the new giant SMs can go just about as far as you need them to (ie, they can range a target like the Kh-22 all the way back to its launch point). All that is contingent on the Tu-22s getting to within firing range, which if we're fighting a Balkan or Eastern European scenario, means they'll have to fly a long way through contested airspace in order to get to launch points.
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Mar 24, 2017 20:01
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I guess I'd still be pretty uncomfortable relying on that given just how many absurdly powerful anti ship missiles were made and stockpiled with really their only main purpose being wiping out US carriers, including later advances making them faster, longer ranged etc, or even stuff like anti ship ballistic missiles which remove the need for the bomber. The US still only fields like, what, 10 full size aircraft carriers? They'd have to get lucky very consistently. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 20:22
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OwlFancier posted:I guess I'd still be pretty uncomfortable relying on that given just how many absurdly powerful anti ship missiles were made and stockpiled with really their only main purpose being wiping out US carriers, including later advances making them faster, longer ranged etc, or even stuff like anti ship ballistic missiles which remove the need for the bomber. Yeah but but how many active SSNs do the Russians have anymore? How many Backfires still in service? It's not like the Russians have thousands of launch platforms, and they wouldn't just be unobserved in any scenario where a CVG might actually get attacked by one. Mazz fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 20:48
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Having to fly over Europe would definitely be a problem, but I guess I am assuming that it would probably be Russia starting, or at least provoking the war and they'd probably make the effort to reactivate enough of their stockpiles to be a threat. I should perhaps consider that it might be entirely possible that in 2018 the USS Iowa will sail into the Baltic to try and do a Commodore Perry on St. Petersburg so that Trump can export golf courses or something. Speaking of, Jesus Christ he's the most stereotypically British looking American naval officer I ever saw. 
OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 20:52
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You aren't going to get good unclassified sources, but it's worth noting that all the Global Wargame Series (https://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment...1984---1988.pdf) games had the carriers generally safe from most attacks except nukes. First you have to know where the target is, then you need to get to a launch point, then your missile needs to actually hit. That's bloody difficult, particularly given that a carrier group operating AWACS is going to see you before you see it.
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Mar 24, 2017 21:29
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I've been expanding my reading beyond my usual realms of Britain 1600-1954, and looking at some romans. Does anyone know of any good studies about Roman armour? I've been poking around looking for ballistic gel studies on squamata, plumata and segmentata but am drawing a blank. For my modern oriented mind, segmentata seems like a revolutionary invention, but was it as much of a huge leap in infantry armour as it seems, or was it only marginally better than the other contemporary armours?
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Mar 24, 2017 22:03
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Yeah, I was going to say that if you wanted to try and lob some kh-22s at a carrier group, said carriers combat air patrol is probably going to want to have a word with you first
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Mar 24, 2017 22:08
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lenoon posted:I've been expanding my reading beyond my usual realms of Britain 1600-1954, and looking at some romans. Does anyone know of any good studies about Roman armour? I've been poking around looking for ballistic gel studies on squamata, plumata and segmentata but am drawing a blank. For my modern oriented mind, segmentata seems like a revolutionary invention, but was it as much of a huge leap in infantry armour as it seems, or was it only marginally better than the other contemporary armours? No sources right now but from what I remember lorica segmentata is worse from a protection standpoint than lorica hamata, but hamata is much more labour intensive to make. I think it's telling that hamata/maille continued on for centuries while the use of segmentata wasn't adopted in a big way by anyone else after the early Roman empire.
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Mar 24, 2017 22:11
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MikeCrotch posted:I think it's telling that hamata/maille continued on for centuries while the use of segmentata wasn't adopted in a big way by anyone else after the early Roman empire. I dunno about that. See: roads, aqueducts, cement and so on.
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Mar 24, 2017 22:14
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MikeCrotch posted:No sources right now but from what I remember lorica segmentata is worse from a protection standpoint than lorica hamata, but hamata is much more labour intensive to make. I thought it was sort of the other way around because while maille is time consuming to make, it's not especially difficult. Whereas plate armour requires a skilled smith.
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Mar 24, 2017 22:23
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I have nothing to contribute but just want to add that my brain is so used to the 19th century or later that I read "Roman armor" as meaning tanks for a second.
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Mar 24, 2017 22:54
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Lucky for whoever requested the ZIK-20, I already did that one and forgot to remove it from the list, so here's the next article. T-12 and T-24 Queue: LPP-25, LTP, Valentine in the USSR, ZIS-41 and ZIS-43 halftracks, Medium Tank M2, T2E1 Light Tank, Combat Car M1, T18 HMC, M10 Wolverine, Infantry Tank MkI, Hummel, LT vz. 38, Pz38(t), E-50 and E-75, Hellcat trials in the USSR Available for request:  Light Tank M3A3  A1E1 Independent  T-37 with ShKAS Wartime modifications of the T-37 and T-38 SG-122 76 mm gun mod of the Matilda Tank destroyers on the T-30 and T-40 chassis 45 mm M-42 gun SU-76 prototype T-60 production in difficult years SU-26/T-26-6 NEW  L-10 and L-30 Strv m/40 Strv m/42 Landsverk prototypes 1943-1951 Strv m/21 Strv 81 and Strv 101  Trials of the TKS and C2P in the USSR 37 mm anti-tank gun  Renault NC Renault D1 Renault R35 Renault D2 Renault R40 25 mm Hotchkiss gun Char B1 in German service NEW  PzI Ausf. B PzI Ausf. C PzII Ausf. a though b PzII Ausf. c through C PzII Ausf. D through E PzII Ausf. F PzII trials in the USSR Pak 97/38 7.5 cm Pak 41 s.FH. 18  LT vz 35 Praga AH-IV Praga LTL and Pzw 39 NEW
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Mar 24, 2017 23:08
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OwlFancier posted:I thought it was sort of the other way around because while maille is time consuming to make, it's not especially difficult. Whereas plate armour requires a skilled smith. This is correct. Mail (hamata) was a lot less difficult to produce despite being time consuming, and more importantly, it's easier to repair and maintain. Some historians believe that segmentata, while functional, wasn't something that was actually used in battle very often and was more like something they'd wear on parade. That's not to say it was never worn in battle, because it was, but mail was much more utilitarian and widespread for day-to-day stuff.
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Mar 24, 2017 23:09
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Personally I'm just sad that Lorica Squamata never seemed to have caught on in a big way. It's so pretty!
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