Military History Mk. III: One that I know of is an archaic word for dick, another is

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Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

aphid_licker posted:

The Nazis couldn't really afford to throw anything out so they were big on kludged conversions. The Hetzer was on the Czech 38 chassis I think? When you're trying to fit a long 75mm into something that originally came with a 37mm something's gotta give, and sometimes that thing is the loader's spine, who realistically is not going to live to enjoy a quiet retirement anyway. The Marder was another example. There was something they built like four of on the chassis of some rejected prototype. The Ferdinand?

Derived from the 38t but with some modifications. And casement mounts tend to carry bigger guns than turreted mounts (see the StuG using the Pz III hull) though the JgdPz 38t was pushing it.

# ? Feb 25, 2018 21:17

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# ? Jun 10, 2024 15:07

ArchangeI: Jul 15, 2010

Fangz posted:

From the sounds of it a hetzer isn't much better than an AT-gun, really. How's the fancy remote control machine gun?

The German 75mm Pak 40 was on the very upper end of what the crew could realistically manhandle, and then only over very short distances. Motorizing it makes perfect sense, so you use an outdated tank chassis. Which is how the Marder series came to be. but the Marders were pretty tall and open-topped, which makes them pretty vulnerable. The Hetzer was another attempt to improve on that by making it fully enclosed and pretty low to the ground. The hype is because it is pretty good at doing what it is supposed to be doing - making an AT gun more mobile and survivable. It is by no means The One Weird German Tank That Would Have Changed History - Americans Hate It!

# ? Feb 25, 2018 21:19

Ensign Expendable: Nov 11, 2008; Lager beer is proof that god loves us; Pillbug

Cessna posted:

I was an armor crewman in the USMC, I spent 8 years in armor. I've worked on M-60A1s, M-1A1s, and AAV7A1.

Several years ago I did some WWII reenacting. After a while I decided it wasn't for me, but I had some fun at the time. The group I'm with had (has) some WWII armor, and would travel to events in other states. I've spent time on Shermans, Stuarts, a T-34/85, and others. None of them are a modern tank, obviously, but I can meaningfully compare WWII vehicles to each other.

At an event in Camp Roberts, CA, I got to spend some time with a Hetzer. Here's a photo from the event:

And one of it next to a Sherman:

The Sherman is a LOT bigger, the perspective doesn't really show this well.

This Hetzer was one of the ones that was sent to the Swiss army after the war. By the 70's they had outlived their usefulness and the Swiss were practically giving them away to anyone who could haul them off; many ended up in the hands of collectors and reenactors. The one I was on still had the old gasoline engine.

Many of the descriptions talk about how the Hetzer is "cramped." They don't do it justice. I'm a bit over 6'1", and found that it was very difficult to get in and out of the various crew positions. In particular the driver, gunner, and loader are all on the same side of the hull, wedged in beside the gun's breech - so if you want to get into the driver's you drop in through the hatch onto the loader's seat, then swing up and clamber over the gunner's, then into the driver's - through a VERY limited amount of space. The idea of trying to get out when the vehicle is on fire is nightmarish.

Driving was VERY disappointing. I've driven a lot of armor, and couldn't get the hang of the Hetzer. Ever teach someone how to drive a stickshift for the first time? Everything feels jerky and lurches around. Gears grind, the vehicle staggers from place to place. The Hetzer feels like that, and did even when the guy who owned it (and drove it a lot) took over. It felt like clattering, wheezing garbage. A Soviet BMP-1 feels like a smooth and spacious ride in comparison.

Visibility was terrible from the driver's station. Combine this with how cramped it is and how badly it drove and trying to get from one side of an open field to another feels risky. I can't imagine driving that thing over rough or broken terrain - which you really need to do in order to fight effectively.

I have no idea how the loader worked. He sat on the gun's left, in a half-sitting/half-standing position without enough room to move around. I can't see how this worked in practice.

Everything inside felt cheap and shoddy - even in comparison with Soviet stuff. Seemingly all of the little fittings, mounts, tiedown-points, and the like were cracked or broken. Even though the owner had mopped out the bilges before the event, it still leaked oil and gas. I understand that old vehicles do this, but this seemed worse than corresponding Soviet vehicles, even though the owner said he'd replaced as many gaskets as he could. The interior was just saturated with gas fumes whenever the engine was running. Given how hard it would be to get out of one of these vehicles when it's on fire, having an interior soaked with gasoline made it feel really - risky.

The armor seemed really tinny and cheap. The top hatches on an M-5 Stuart feel more substantial.

I only spend a few hours on the thing, and I've obviously never taken it into combat, but from what I saw it was junk.

Yeah, that's basically the impression the Soviets had of the vehicle. This is a really cool write-up, do you mind if I post it on my blog?

# ? Feb 25, 2018 21:34

feedmegin: Jul 30, 2008

aphid_licker posted:

I've read so often about this being done as crowd control, you send in the cavalry and they beat people with the flat of the sabre and that just seems really dangerous.

It is. When you use cavalry for crowd control people die.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre

# ? Feb 25, 2018 22:21

Gort: Aug 18, 2003; Good day what ho cup of tea

PittTheElder posted:

There's also like exactly 1 ARVN guy which seemed a little strange.

Is it hard to find people who are willing to admit to having been ARVN? I don't know much about the politics of postwar Vietnam, but I could see being on the losing side of a civil war not being the kind of thing you own up to.

# ? Feb 25, 2018 22:55

Grand Prize Winner: Feb 19, 2007

You could probably find quite a few in the US though. I think most Vietnamese in the US are people who fled after South Vietnam collapsed.

# ? Feb 25, 2018 23:07

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Grand Prize Winner posted:

You could probably find quite a few in the US though. I think most Vietnamese in the US are people who fled after South Vietnam collapsed.

Yeah there were a bunch of old dudes in that documentary who live in the US now

# ? Feb 25, 2018 23:28

Acebuckeye13: Nov 2, 2010; Against All Tyrants; Ultra Carp

Grand Prize Winner posted:

You could probably find quite a few in the US though. I think most Vietnamese in the US are people who fled after South Vietnam collapsed.

I actually know an adult leader from my old Boy Scout Troop who was an A-37 Dragonfly pilot for the VNAF, though I didn't learn that fact about him until just a couple of years ago. He still flies and is a member of the Civil Air Patrol.

# ? Feb 25, 2018 23:29

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Grand Prize Winner posted:

You could probably find quite a few in the US though. I think most Vietnamese in the US are people who fled after South Vietnam collapsed.

Apparently there are a lot here in Ireland, specifically around Dublin. There's was a veteran's association just around the corner from my school when I was there in the early 2000's.

ETA: at the time I thought it was weird that we had enough US military veterans living here for them to need an association, but when it was explained that "Vietnam Veterans Association" actually meant veterans from Vietnam I was just :psyduck:

. Why come here of all places?

# ? Feb 25, 2018 23:31

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Arquinsiel posted:

Apparently there are a lot here in Ireland, specifically around Dublin. There's was a veteran's association just around the corner from my school when I was there in the early 2000's.

ETA: at the time I thought it was weird that we had enough US military veterans living here for them to need an association, but when it was explained that "Vietnam Veterans Association" actually meant veterans from Vietnam I was just . Why come here of all places?

dresden has a vietnam veterans association but it's the other guys

i mean, it makes perfect sense why there are a whole lot of vietnamese-germans, it's just germans will die if they eat a spice so the food must have been an unpleasant shock

HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Feb 25, 2018

# ? Feb 25, 2018 23:35

mllaneza: Apr 28, 2007; Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952

Arquinsiel posted:

ETA: at the time I thought it was weird that we had enough US military veterans living here for them to need an association, but when it was explained that "Vietnam Veterans Association" actually meant veterans from Vietnam I was just . Why come here of all places?

First World country not noticeably entangled in the Vietnam War ? A quiet place to retire to ? Someplace where your English language skills will help, but without the risk of running into a veteran from the other side ?

# ? Feb 25, 2018 23:36

SeanBeansShako: Nov 20, 2009; Now the Drums beat up again,
For all true Soldier Gentlemen.

feedmegin posted:

It is. When you use cavalry for crowd control people die.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre

Fun fact, one of the victims of that was a veteran from Waterloo.

# ? Feb 25, 2018 23:39

Geisladisk: Sep 15, 2007

aphid_licker posted:

Artisanal handcrafted tank destroyers! Limited edition!

The story of the Ferdinand is a prime example of what a goofy and incompetent Nazi Ferdinand Porsche was, and how nepotistic and terrible the internal workings of the Nazi state were.

When Nazi Germany wanted a piece of military hardware made, they didn't do it like the Soviets or Americans, where the military designed the thing, it went through all kinds of internal prototyping and testing, and then the finished design was sent to companies or state factories, depending on your favorite economic system, and they were told "build as many of this thing as you possibly can".

What the Nazis did was make a rough specification, and then send that specification out to companies, who then made competing proposals for the final design. This results in a lot of equipment being made more to dazzle high-up Nazis than to be a useful weapon of war (see: Panther), but that is another topic.

So Porsche submits a proposal for the Tiger. It is really fancy, with a petrol-electric drive, where a petrol generator powered electrical motors which actually turned the drive wheels. This is a neat idea, but turned out to be hot garbage in execution, with terrible fuel economy, in addition to breaking down constantly. It also had the turret located on the front of the tank (think "fat T-34"). The huge turret moved the center of gravity overmuch to the front of the tank, harming it's ability to traverse rough terrain. It also had a tendency to crash it's gun barrel into the ground when traversing trenches.

Our man Ferdinand Porsche, however, is convinced that his design is the superior one, largely because he was close to Hitler. He is so convinced that he starts production immediately after the design was completed, before the winner of the design contest had been chosen. Once it is clear that Porsche's proposal will not be chosen for production, Porsche has already manufactured almost 100 chassis.

Porsche now has a hundred second-rate heavy tanks without turrets lying around. Porsche tries to get some turrets from Henschel (the manufacturer of the final Tiger I) to mate to their chassis, and gets told to gently caress off, since all the turrets were needed for the real Tigers. Porsche then tries to sell the chassis to the army as a heavy mortar carrier, by just sticking a 120mm mortar into the hole where the turret should go. The army isn't super enthused about this.

After collecting dust for six months, the army, who is having a Very Bad Time in Russia, eventually decides to use these 100 heavy tank chassis they have lying around, and the simplest way of doing that is to just slap a casemate with a anti-tank gun on top of them. Thus was born the Ferdinand.

Geisladisk fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Feb 26, 2018

# ? Feb 25, 2018 23:56

unwantedplatypus: Sep 6, 2012

how many pikes would you need to disable a ferdinand?

# ? Feb 26, 2018 01:26

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

mllaneza posted:

First World country not noticeably entangled in the Vietnam War ? A quiet place to retire to ? Someplace where your English language skills will help, but without the risk of running into a veteran from the other side ?

Back then "First World" didn't have the same meaning, so we weren't it. Also in the current meaning... we weren't it. Like maybe better than Vietnam, but not exactly good or anything. This was still when the government was banning certain types of candy for being "suggestive". Immigration to Ireland wasn't really a thing until around when I noticed this either.

unwantedplatypus posted:

how many pikes would you need to disable a ferdinand?

One. I'm not even joking, they had no anti-infantry defence so you could just shove it through the vision slits and go hog wild.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 01:33

Mycroft Holmes: Mar 26, 2010; by Azathoth

unwantedplatypus posted:

how many pikes would you need to disable a ferdinand?

given the initial models had no mg and only recieved a forward facing ball turret mg after kursk, one probably

# ? Feb 26, 2018 01:33

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Geisladisk posted:

So Porsche submits a proposal for the Tiger. It is really fancy, with a petrol-electric drive, where a petrol generator powered electrical motors which actually turned the drive wheels. This is a neat idea, but turned out to be hot garbage in execution, with terrible fuel economy, in addition to breaking down constantly. It also had the turret located on the front of the tank (think "fat T-34"). The huge turret moved the center of gravity overmuch to the front of the tank, harming it's ability to traverse rough terrain. It also had a tendency to crash it's gun barrel into the ground when traversing trenches.

When it worked it was impressive. Since it uses electric drive systems it can go both forwards and backwards at comparable speeds.

But it also used a LOT of copper, a resource that Germany did not have in abundance at the time.

When they converted them into Ferdinand/Elephants (forgot which one goes first) they moved the engine up and put a casemate on the back of it. And left out the MG as being unnecessary.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 01:37

thatbastardken: Apr 23, 2010; A contract signed by a minor is not binding!

Arquinsiel posted:

Back then "First World" didn't have the same meaning, so we weren't it. Also in the current meaning... we weren't it. Like maybe better than Vietnam, but not exactly good or anything. This was still when the government was banning certain types of candy for being "suggestive". Immigration to Ireland wasn't really a thing until around when I noticed this either.

could have been Vietnamese Catholics

# ? Feb 26, 2018 01:38

Chillyrabbit: Oct 24, 2012; The only sword wielding rabbit on the internet; Ultra Carp

Arquinsiel posted:

One. I'm not even joking, they had no anti-infantry defence so you could just shove it through the vision slits and go hog wild.

In that vein don't try to replicate the Americans anti tank efforts. ie the anti tank rocks, or anti tank sticks.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 01:41

Elyv: Jun 14, 2013

Arquinsiel posted:

Back then "First World" didn't have the same meaning, so we weren't it. Also in the current meaning... we weren't it. Like maybe better than Vietnam, but not exactly good or anything. This was still when the government was banning certain types of candy for being "suggestive". Immigration to Ireland wasn't really a thing until around when I noticed this either.

Was there a large Vietnamese community in Ireland before that? When people have to immigrate they often go to where family is.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 01:49

Cessna: Feb 20, 2013; KHABAHBLOOOM

Ensign Expendable posted:

Yeah, that's basically the impression the Soviets had of the vehicle. This is a really cool write-up, do you mind if I post it on my blog?

Sure, go right ahead.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 01:56

sullat: Jan 9, 2012

Geisladisk posted:

The story of the Ferdinand is a prime example of what a goofy and incompetent Nazi Ferdinand Porsche was, and how nepotistic and terrible the internal workings of the Nazi state were.

When Nazi Germany wanted a piece of military hardware made, they didn't do it like the Soviets or Americans, where the military designed the thing, it went through all kinds of internal prototyping and testing, and then the finished design was sent to companies or state factories, depending on your favorite economic system, and they were told "build as many of this thing as you possibly can".

What the Nazis did was make a rough specification, and then send that specification out to companies, who then made competing proposals for the final design. This results in a lot of equipment being made more to dazzle high-up Nazis than to be a useful weapon of war (see: Panther), but that is another topic.

Pretty sure the US did that for planes, at least. They'd say, "get us a bomber that can carry X bombs for Y miles" and then pick between competing designs.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 01:57

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Elyv posted:

Was there a large Vietnamese community in Ireland before that? When people have to immigrate they often go to where family is.

Nope. Ireland was pretty monocultural white Irish angry Christian of some flavour at that point. We didn't even get much European immigration really, what with our economy being poo poo.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 02:06

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

sullat posted:

Pretty sure the US did that for planes, at least. They'd say, "get us a bomber that can carry X bombs for Y miles" and then pick between competing designs.

You would get proposals and then more advanced models and prototypes as the numbers got whittled down.

You wouldn't have a company producing 100+ units before the decision was made though.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 02:14

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

# ? Feb 26, 2018 02:20

Monocled Falcon: Oct 30, 2011

Has any army ever had to capture a large (20-30 stories) skyscraper from a determined defender? I was just struck by the thought that that must be a whole new level of hell.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 02:33

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

TBH wouldn't you just drop it?

# ? Feb 26, 2018 02:59

Gaius Marius: Oct 9, 2012

Yeah trying fortify the rope floors of a skyscraper is just asking for trouble. Perhaps you'd be better looking at hostage rescue or anti terrorism teams to see if anything like that had happened. They'd be far more likely to have to go in instead of just blowing it up.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 03:03

golden bubble: Jun 3, 2011; yospos

Just look into the siege of Sarajevo.

The very tallest hotels in Aleppo, Syria are (were?) about 20 stories as well. From 2015:

https://twitter.com/archicivilians/status/564792242443780096

golden bubble fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Feb 26, 2018

# ? Feb 26, 2018 03:07

Squalid: Nov 4, 2008

Arquinsiel posted:

Apparently there are a lot here in Ireland, specifically around Dublin. There's was a veteran's association just around the corner from my school when I was there in the early 2000's.

ETA: at the time I thought it was weird that we had enough US military veterans living here for them to need an association, but when it was explained that "Vietnam Veterans Association" actually meant veterans from Vietnam I was just . Why come here of all places?

In the United States, some of these Vietnam Veterans Associations developed into something rather disturbing. The PBS series 'Frontline' ran an episode about the murder of a Vietnamese journalist in Houston a couple years ago that was a rare look into a mostly invisible problem. While charges were never filed, the murder was almost certainly performed by a group of professional assassins named K9, a wing of a militant ARVN veterans group named 'The Front,' dedicated to continuing the anti-communist fight.

quote:

A.C. THOMPSON:
[voice-over] I still don�t know who ran K9, who gave the orders, who pulled the trigger. The closest law enforcement ever came to cracking the Front�s leadership was with the same tool that took down Al Capone, a tax case.

The San Jose detective who helped build the federal tax case has retired to the hills of northern California. Doug Zwemke keeps his scrapbook from his investigations.

Sgt. DOUG ZWEMKE (Ret.), San Jose Police Dept.:
Some of my friends call this the �Rolodex of Death.�

A.C. THOMPSON:
It is filled with the photos of informants who were murdered while working with him.

DOUG ZWEMKE:
He had a little sign on his chest. �I�m snitch, I die snitch.�

A.C. THOMPSON:
[on camera] Oh, my God!

DOUG ZWEMKE:
Yeah. She was an informant. She moves to Texas. They killed her and burned her. He got murdered. Here�s a guy that helped on the Front a little bit, but he was murdered in San Quentin.

Now here is the star, the person that started the whole thing. This is Freedom Fighter. And that�s his wife, Velvet. This is the guy that murdered him. Whether he was murdered for helping me or because of the Front, the murderer�s never been caught.

A.C. THOMPSON:
How did you get on this case?

DOUG ZWEMKE:
Freedom Fighter� he thought it would be a significant case for me to look into. It was right on, and it was verifiable. I didn�t have to believe what he was saying, I could just go out and it was right under my nose� demonstrations, rallies, fundraisers. Then you can see the money flow.

That was the key. How can we get arrests from this criminal enterprise, for pretty easy? You know, then just the tax. It�s� the money talks, and you can follow it.

A.C. THOMPSON:
[voice-over] Zwemke tells me the Front was raising large sums of money to launch guerrilla operations against Vietnam. That would have been illegal under U.S. law, but he says it was easier to try to prosecute them for not paying their taxes.

[on camera] In your view, could you have used the tax case to squeeze information�

DOUG ZWEMKE:
No question. No question. Human behavior is human behavior. Whether you�re Vietnamese or� or anything. The old axiom, to err is human, to snitch is divine. [laughs]

A.C. THOMPSON:
So� so-

DOUG ZWEMKE:
So you would have rolled them. And they would have gone. And then you�d start filling in the organization chart concerning the K9s, the murders, the national and the international perspective of this thing. It could have opened a lot of doors.

A.C. THOMPSON:
How long did you work on the tax case?

DOUG ZWEMKE:
We got to the indictment thing within a couple of years. And then it just kind of stalled and stalled and then appeals. And the U.S. attorney in that case gave me a call. �Sorry,� you know, �statutes ran, and I wasn�t watching the clock.� You got to be kidding me.

Anyway, the cases were lost. You know, I still think today that what they did in organizing, actually, an international organization� for them to pull that off in such a quick time, that takes money, that takes support, that takes materiel.

A.C. THOMPSON:
[voice-over] It takes me a minute to understand exactly what Zwemke�s driving at.

DOUG ZWEMKE:
Clearly, tacit support for their organization.

A.C. THOMPSON:
And I hesitate to ask the obvious question.

[on camera] Your theory is somewhere in the background was the U.S. government.

DOUG ZWEMKE:
Oh, yeah.

Depending on where you live you can probably watch the whole thing on the PBS website, or read the transcript here.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 03:33

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Elyv posted:

Was there a large Vietnamese community in Ireland before that? When people have to immigrate they often go to where family is.

In 1979, the Irish, responding to a UN request, agreed to take in 200 Vietnamese refugees who had fled the country when the North took over.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 03:41

Cessna: Feb 20, 2013; KHABAHBLOOOM

Gort posted:

Is it hard to find people who are willing to admit to having been ARVN?

The local Asian grocery store and associated strip mall have a memorial to the Vietnam war in their parking lot. Here's a photo from the dedication:

They still fly a Republic of Vietnam flag there. A lot of the Vietnamese ex-pats are still quite unhappy that the war went the way it did.

Edit: Fixed image tags.

Cessna fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Feb 26, 2018

# ? Feb 26, 2018 04:00

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Epicurius posted:

In 1979, the Irish, responding to a UN request, agreed to take in 200 Vietnamese refugees who had fled the country when the North took over.

I dug out the next census data after that happened, and it kind of shows you what I mean by "homogenous". Everything on this list from Scotland on down would have been considered "exotic" when I was growing up. http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/census/census1981results/volume9/C_1981_V9_P2_T1a.pdf

ETA: taking in refugees at the request of the UN makes sense as to why people would come here though, our rep for being reliable UN members happy to help out with peacekeeping was well cemented by 79.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 04:38

Nenonen: Oct 22, 2009; Mulla on aina kolkyt donaa taskussa

Arquinsiel posted:

One. I'm not even joking, they had no anti-infantry defence so you could just shove it through the vision slits and go hog wild.

This isn't quite as important as people seem to think when talking about Ferdinand. Tank destroyers seldom had meaningful anti-infantry weaponry, ie. co-axial machineguns (preferably on a rotating turret). WW2 bow machineguns usually were inaccurate (no optics, no sights) and had extremely limited traverse plus their operator had other things to attend; meanwhile AA machineguns required that you expose yourself to infantry fire. No, the best anti-infantry defence for a tank destroyer would be to stand at range instead of acting like tanks in the middle of enemy infantry. SU-100 is no different.

Monocled Falcon posted:

Has any army ever had to capture a large (20-30 stories) skyscraper from a determined defender? I was just struck by the thought that that must be a whole new level of hell.

This is slightly different, but shows how it's done the Russian style but still following some restricted rules of engagement:

quote:

Between October 2�4, the position of the army was the deciding factor. The military equivocated for several hours about how to respond to Yeltsin's call for action. By this time dozens of people had been killed and hundreds had been wounded.

Rutskoy, as a former general, appealed to some of his ex-colleagues. After all, many officers and especially rank-and-file soldiers had little sympathy for Yeltsin. But the supporters of the parliament did not send any emissaries to the barracks to recruit lower-ranking officer corps, making the fatal mistake of attempting to deliberate only among high-ranking military officials who already had close ties to parliamentary leaders. In the end, a prevailing bulk of the generals did not want to take their chances with a Rutskoy-Khasbulatov regime. Some generals had stated their intention to back the parliament, but at the last moment moved over to Yeltsin's side.

The plan of action was proposed by Captain Gennady Zakharov. Ten tanks were to fire at the upper floors of the White House, with the aim of minimizing casualties but creating confusion and panic amongst the defenders. Then, special troops of the Vympel and Alpha units would storm the building.[43] According to Yeltsin's bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov, firing on the upper floors was also necessary to scare off snipers.

By noon, troops entered the White House and began to occupy it, floor by floor. Rutskoy's desperate appeal to Air Force pilots to bomb the Kremlin was broadcast by the Echo of Moscow radio station but went unanswered.[45] Hostilities were stopped several times to allow some in the White House to leave. By mid-afternoon, popular resistance in the streets was completely suppressed, barring occasional sniper fire.

The "second October Revolution", as mentioned, saw the deadliest street fighting in Moscow since 1917. Police said, on October 8, that 187[46] had died in the conflict and 437 had been wounded. Communist sources named much higher numbers: up to 2,000 dead.[citation needed]

# ? Feb 26, 2018 05:06

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

quote:

ETA: taking in refugees at the request of the UN makes sense as to why people would come here though, our rep for being reliable UN members happy to help out with peacekeeping was well cemented by 79.

Sure, although the government had denied the first two requests. It a had taken appeals by the Church and the UN dragging Irish representatives to a refugee camp in Malaysia before they agreed.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 05:16

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Epicurius posted:

Sure, although the government had denied the first two requests. It a had taken appeals by the Church and the UN dragging Irish representatives to a refugee camp in Malaysia before they agreed.

We're great at keeping people alive over there, but not so good over here. Direct Provision is a national shame, and we can't seem to do poo poo about it. But still they come :iiam:

# ? Feb 26, 2018 05:24

OpenlyEvilJello: Dec 28, 2009

Geisladisk posted:

So Porsche submits a proposal for the Tiger. It is really fancy, with a petrol-electric drive, where a petrol generator powered electrical motors which actually turned the drive wheels. This is a neat idea, but turned out to be hot garbage in execution, with terrible fuel economy, in addition to breaking down constantly.

The naval equivalent of this, turbo-electric drive, powered a number of late-WWI-period US battleships as well as the Lexington-class carriers. Funnily enough, one of its major advantages at the time was fuel economy. You see, ships' propellers are most efficient turning at relatively low RPM�higher rates expend more energy with cavitation and turbulence�but turbines are most efficient turning at high RPM. Early on, designers basically had to compromise, resulting in the screws turning too fast and the turbine blades too slow, so early turbine-powered ships were fuel-inefficient, especially at low speeds. By decoupling the turbine shaft from the propellers and instead using it to drive a generator, the turbine was free to spin at its most efficient rate no matter what speed the ship needs. The powerful electric motors directly connected to screws could spin at more efficient speeds for the screws, as well as functioning equally well in reverse, without the need for a secondary reverse turbine. Turbo-electric drive also had the benefit of naturally separating into a number relatively small, self-contained units that made it amenable to fine subdivision, an obvious boon to watertight integrity.

Two things killed turbo-electric drive in major warships. The first was the Washington Naval Treaty. You see, turbo-electric drive is very dense, very heavy, and battleships are weight-critical. Since the Treaty placed tight limits on the weight of individual ships, it strongly incentivized using the lightest components to free up weight for guns and armor. The second was the refinement of the geared turbine engine. Use of reduction gearing enabled the turbine speed to be decoupled from the screw speed, solving the key efficiency problem. Making warship-grade gears was a delicate process, something akin to high-performance jet engine turbine blades today, and it was some years before the state of the art advanced enough to tip the USN's balance of opinion.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 05:43

Polikarpov: Jun 1, 2013; Keep it between the buoys

Geisladisk posted:

The story of the Ferdinand is a prime example of what a goofy and incompetent Nazi Ferdinand Porsche was, and how nepotistic and terrible the internal workings of the Nazi state were.

When Nazi Germany wanted a piece of military hardware made, they didn't do it like the Soviets or Americans, where the military designed the thing, it went through all kinds of internal prototyping and testing, and then the finished design was sent to companies or state factories, depending on your favorite economic system, and they were told "build as many of this thing as you possibly can".

What the Nazis did was make a rough specification, and then send that specification out to companies, who then made competing proposals for the final design. This results in a lot of equipment being made more to dazzle high-up Nazis than to be a useful weapon of war (see: Panther), but that is another topic.

So Porsche submits a proposal for the Tiger. It is really fancy, with a petrol-electric drive, where a petrol generator powered electrical motors which actually turned the drive wheels. This is a neat idea, but turned out to be hot garbage in execution, with terrible fuel economy, in addition to breaking down constantly. It also had the turret located on the front of the tank (think "fat T-34"). The huge turret moved the center of gravity overmuch to the front of the tank, harming it's ability to traverse rough terrain. It also had a tendency to crash it's gun barrel into the ground when traversing trenches.

Our man Ferdinand Porsche, however, is convinced that his design is the superior one, largely because he was close to Hitler. He is so convinced that he starts production immediately after the design was completed, before the winner of the design contest had been chosen. Once it is clear that Porsche's proposal will not be chosen for production, Porsche has already manufactured almost 100 chassis.

Porsche now has a hundred second-rate heavy tanks without turrets lying around. Porsche tries to get some turrets from Henschel (the manufacturer of the final Tiger I) to mate to their chassis, and gets told to gently caress off, since all the turrets were needed for the real Tigers. Porsche then tries to sell the chassis to the army as a heavy mortar carrier, by just sticking a 120mm mortar into the hole where the turret should go. The army isn't super enthused about this.

After collecting dust for six months, the army, who is having a Very Bad Time in Russia, eventually decides to use these 100 heavy tank chassis they have lying around, and the simplest way of doing that is to just slap a casemate with a anti-tank gun on top of them. Thus was born the Ferdinand.

Development of the Porsche Tiger and subsequent production of the Ferdinand also disrupted work at the tank factory where they were being made so much that it missed its production quota for Pz IVs by over a thousand tanks. Now admitted that was a ~~Nazi~~ production quota and based on fantasy but its still a significant setback in production.

Polikarpov fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Feb 26, 2018

# ? Feb 26, 2018 05:50

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

HEY GUNS posted:

dresden has a vietnam veterans association but it's the other guys

i mean, it makes perfect sense why there are a whole lot of vietnamese-germans, it's just germans will die if they eat a spice so the food must have been an unpleasant shock

There a decent sized community in Berlin too. Started in e. Berlin of course but they�ve kinda spread out in the last almost 30 years.

It took me forever to convince my favorite Berlin Vietnamese restaurant to make my food spicy.

# ? Feb 26, 2018 06:01

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# ? Jun 10, 2024 15:07

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Cyrano4747 posted:

There a decent sized community in Berlin too. Started in e. Berlin of course but they�ve kinda spread out in the last almost 30 years.

It took me forever to convince my favorite Berlin Vietnamese restaurant to make my food spicy.

oh GOd yes

also i blame the sino-soviet split for why i can't get any decent chinese food in dresden. it's all made by vietnamese people poorly

# ? Feb 26, 2018 06:12

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Military History Mk. III: One that I know of is an archaic word for dick, another is

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