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MikeCrotch posted:I'm not sure the "opposition to communism" theory holds much water since socialists (both democratic and revolutionary) had held power in the German government since pretty much its creation prior to the nazis cropping up. Social democrats =/= Communists You don't want to mix up those two. It was definitely a great motivator for the old elites to finally get rid of the communist elements. This was especially virulent in Bavaria.
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Apr 5, 2017 17:15
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I've been busy squirreling away at alternate history, and ended up pondering naval strength. To what extent is it true that naval powers primarily tend to be countries that're islands, either literally or in essence? I was thinking of places that were known for their navy and the only one that comes to mind as not primarily isolated by large bodies of water is France; the US is essentially an island-continent (bordered by two peaceful or allied neighbours from the point it's thought of as a naval superpower), Great Britain was an island, Japan was an island. Were there countries in the med that were considered naval superpowers that were bordered by a lot of other countries? It makes a large amount of sense; no competing army priority if you can always choose whether or not to get involved in a war by sinking anything that tries to land. On the other hand, France was absolutely a powerful navy at one point, and totally did have land-based conflict to worry about too.
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Apr 5, 2017 17:21
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spectralent posted:I've been busy squirreling away at alternate history, and ended up pondering naval strength. Genoa, for one. Athens as well.
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Apr 5, 2017 17:23
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spectralent posted:I've been busy squirreling away at alternate history, and ended up pondering naval strength. The Netherlands were. Part of the reason they lost that status is land wars. They were no slouch for a long while though, and without Britain on hand to take up the spot they might've stayed the top power.
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Apr 5, 2017 17:24
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Make the Netherlands the United Provinces again!
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Apr 5, 2017 17:39
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Man what is it with petty dictators and executing their own generals. Is that something Saddam did more than once in the conflict? I can hardly think of any behavior that would seem worse strategically.
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Apr 5, 2017 17:52
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Molentik posted:Make the Netherlands the United Provinces again! It would be pretty funny if Flanders and Wallonia finally split up, only for Flanders to immediately be annexed by the Netherlands and Dutch not-Trump.
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Apr 5, 2017 17:53
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Squalid posted:Man what is it with petty dictators and executing their own generals. Is that something Saddam did more than once in the conflict? I can hardly think of any behavior that would seem worse strategically. He did it a lot, he executed the people who were too competent because they might come to supplant him. He was very nervous due to the fact that Iraq had a shitload of military coups through the years and the Ba'aths themselves came to power as the result of one. He also executed the incompetent or the unlucky as a warning to the others. Its part of the reason the Iraqi army underperformed so drastically and gradually got better as the war went on. Once he stopped executing the competent people who had kept their heads down started to actually think as they fought and the efficiency of the Iraqi army improved a lot once it stopped being only the mediocre or people who pretended to be mediocre who survived.
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Apr 5, 2017 18:08
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spectralent posted:I've been busy squirreling away at alternate history, and ended up pondering naval strength. I think it tends to be that naval strength/capacity increases the more maritime trade a country is involved in. An island nation is going to have less resource and do more trade by water just as a matter of practice, and thus will develop stronger navies to help protect their shipping lanes from pirates/enemy nations. But as has been noted, other big maritime traders like the USA or Netherlands also have/had strong navies. Historically while Spain was doing most of it's early looting of the new world (and thus shipping tons of gold as well as exotic new goods) they had the strongest navy in the western world.
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Apr 5, 2017 18:19
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Don't forget the Ottomans, Swedes, and Danes.
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Apr 5, 2017 18:34
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The Ottomans weren't really that much of a Naval Power, sure, they controlled the mediterranean during the time of the Barbarossa brothers but that was before they got utterly crushed in Lepanto.
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Apr 5, 2017 18:41
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Who are the naval superpowers today? Are there any countries that would really give the US navy a run for its money in a war, or is the USN pretty strongly at the top of the pile? Would you still call the U.K. Navy superpower caliber strength or has that fallen by the wayside?
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Apr 5, 2017 18:47
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Plutonis posted:The Ottomans weren't really that much of a Naval Power, sure, they controlled the mediterranean
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Apr 5, 2017 18:48
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Ainsley McTree posted:Who are the naval superpowers today? Are there any countries that would really give the US navy a run for its money in a war, or is the USN pretty strongly at the top of the pile? The US The second place is so comically far behind it's barely worth mentioning.
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Apr 5, 2017 18:48
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F-For a while!
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Apr 5, 2017 18:49
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Plutonis posted:The Ottomans weren't really that much of a Naval Power, sure, they controlled the mediterranean during the time of the Barbarossa brothers but that was before they got utterly crushed in Lepanto.
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Apr 5, 2017 18:55
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Ainsley McTree posted:Who are the naval superpowers today? Are there any countries that would really give the US navy a run for its money in a war, or is the USN pretty strongly at the top of the pile? HAHHHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HHHAAAAAAAHAHAHAHHHA We built 2 carriers but currently don't have any planes to fly off of them. 
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Apr 5, 2017 18:56
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Is there a historical equivalent to that boondoggle? That one Swedish ship maybe?
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Apr 5, 2017 19:01
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MikeCrotch posted:HAHHHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Lol is this because of the F-35 being a bill of goods or is there some other hilarious yet British procurement boondoggle behind this?
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Apr 5, 2017 19:02
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Molentik posted:Is there a historical equivalent to that boondoggle? That one Swedish ship maybe? The Graf Zepplin? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_aircraft_carrier_Graf_Zeppelin
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Apr 5, 2017 19:02
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Ainsley McTree posted:Who are the naval superpowers today? Are there any countries that would really give the US navy a run for its money in a war, or is the USN pretty strongly at the top of the pile?  Also that Russian carrier isn't so much a warship as a mobile black-smoke-cloud factory. The Chinese one I think is just an immobile training platform, and, correct me if I'm wrong, only the US has catapult-launching carriers. Everyone else has skijumps.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:06
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This isn't counting the Amphibious Assault Ships and others that are practically carriers, as large as the largest World War 2 carriers ever used.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:08
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FAUXTON posted:Lol is this because of the F-35 being a bill of goods or is there some other hilarious yet British procurement boondoggle behind this? Both. We could have had our carriers built with catapults, in theory they were designed for the alteration, but the government didn't end up doing that on cost grounds (also if I recall BAe were going to charge an absolute arm and a leg for it because they hadn't really done the design work they said they had). No catapults means the VSTOL version of the F-35 is the only modern plane that can fly off the things. Also, our navy is like 30 surface ships now. The only reason it's not a total joke is we've still got subs with nukes. Any kind of hypothetical USN/RN matchup would end up with all our poo poo on the sea floor in about 5 minutes flat. (Someone find and link that graphic with all the aircraft carriers in the world, where like 3/4s of them and all the biggest ones are American?) Edit: it's not just the US with cats, though, Charles de Gaulle has them and can thus operate nice cheap Rafales, or F-18s visiting from US ships. feedmegin fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Apr 5, 2017 |
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Apr 5, 2017 19:08
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France at least has a real carrier, not a large light carrier.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:08
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CommieGIR posted:This isn't counting the Amphibious Assault Ships and others that are practically carriers, as large as the largest World War 2 carriers ever used. 
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Apr 5, 2017 19:09
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zoux posted:
Fuckin' Italy starting an Arms race! e: IIRC the Chinese one does sail as a part of a fleet, but yeah probably does training stuff mostly which is fair.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:09
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Originally they were going to be designed so they could be converted from ski ramps to CATOBAR but BAE forgot this at some point so when the MoD went and tried to get this done, they found it'd cost an extra billion pounds. BAE suffered no consequences for this breach of contract because they own all British military shipbuilding worth a drat. At one point the plan was they could operate Sea Harriers, but lol they nixed the Harriers back in 2011 and the FAA won't have their F-35s until the 2020s. Rule Britannia.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:10
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HEY GAIL posted:along with spain, venice, and genoa they were the early modern Med superpowers, what the hell are you smoking yeah but the med is the short bus of the ocean galley cucks lol
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Apr 5, 2017 19:14
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Further research reveals that the French and Brazilian carriers also operate catapults.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:16
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Quinntan posted:Originally they were going to be designed so they could be converted from ski ramps to CATOBAR but BAE forgot this at some point so when the MoD went and tried to get this done, they found it'd cost an extra billion pounds. BAE suffered no consequences for this breach of contract because they own all British military shipbuilding worth a drat. Also we ordered two but then due to austerity we were going to scrap one as soon as it was built. We rolled that back though, apparently because the Tories want to invade Spain to protect Gibraltar to show what a roaring success Brexit is. France & Brazil both have catapult carriers, the Brazilian one being French originally.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:19
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It amazes me when I speak to friends of mine who are not international policy/history nerds how ignorant most Americans are in regards to our own Military. As jingoistic as our society is, there are many MANY Americans who will tell you with a straight face that we are losing our military edge, and China/Russia are one ship away from being able to dominate the USN and invade New York. Like, the USN is so far advanced/massive of anything else that I think people just cannot comprehend it. It's almost like the obsession over the"bomber gap" of the 1950s-60s but at least the Soviet's had an airforce that could theoretically match up.MikeCrotch posted:Also we ordered two but then due to austerity we were going to scrap one as soon as it was built. We rolled that back though, apparently because the Tories want to invade Spain to protect Gibraltar to show what a roaring success Brexit is. Actually even more hilarious when they were looking to scrap the second carrier the British government discovered it would actually cost MORE to than if they just finished the damned thing. So now you guys are stuck with two carriers. Not that they will be leaving port anytime soon, what with budget cuts, Brexit, Scotxit, and other shenanigans. Rule Britannia indeed. Here is the best bit form Wikipedia quote:In May 2010, the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) declared that the UK required only one aircraft carrier, but penalty clauses in the contract meant that cancelling the second aircraft carrier, Prince of Wales, would be more expensive than building it. The SDSR therefore directed that Prince of Wales would be built and then either mothballed or sold.[21] Solaris 2.0 fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Apr 5, 2017 |
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Apr 5, 2017 19:20
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HEY GAIL posted:along with spain, venice, and genoa they were the early modern Med superpowers, what the hell are you smoking If you can list four comparably strong nations in the same breath can you really call a state a super power? Regardless, during this period the Ottomans also dominated the spice trade into the Persian Gulf and Egypt, which was greater in volume and I think value than the spice trade to Europe. This persisted at least until the rise of Oman as a maritime power in the Indian Ocean.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:26
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Don't forget the Ottomans, Swedes, and Danes. The Swedish navy was never that great, the Danes pretty much always had the better navy and three times we built the biggest ships around to just have them blow up or keel over. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_warship_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronan_(ship) Sweden had the better army though and then one of those things that you would think be utterly bullshit if happened in fiction happened and the sound between Denmark and Scania in one of the endless wars between Sweden and Denmark froze so the Swedish army could march over.  However, ultimately the wars between Sweden and Denmark was mostly solved by the Dutch or English intervening on the losing side since the only thing they cared about was not having the sound toll around anymore.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:34
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zoux posted:
Italy surprises me. Did berlusconi build one to impress a girl or something?
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Apr 5, 2017 19:36
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Ainsley McTree posted:Italy surprises me. Did berlusconi build one to impress a girl or something? The first one didn't have anyone to honk at in traffic.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:39
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Solaris 2.0 posted:Actually even more hilarious when they were looking to scrap the second carrier the British government discovered it would actually cost MORE to than if they just finished the damned thing. So now you guys are stuck with two carriers. There's a bit more to it than that, though. Given Putin's recent antics we're not mothballing the second one after all, we're commissioning both of them, so lovely procurement actually saved us from lovely political decisions this one time!
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Apr 5, 2017 19:40
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zoux posted:The first one didn't have anyone to honk at in traffic.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:43
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Ainsley McTree posted:Italy surprises me. Did berlusconi build one to impress a girl or something? They have two VSTOL carriers which combined displace less than half as much as a single US carrier and (combined) carry less than half the number of aircraft.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:44
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zoux posted:
This is a bit misleading. The Russian navy concentrates more on missile cruisers and submarines, if I remember right. They also built three carriers. The reason why they only have one is they sold one each to India and China.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:59
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It's weird that this shows two French aircraft carriers. The Richelieu was only planned to be built... someday, then got cancelled in 2013.
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Apr 5, 2017 20:00
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