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I just realised I typed "Two rifles, one man" and now you all have to imagine Zaytsev jumping out of windows double-headshotting with a pair of SVTs with me.
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Apr 11, 2018 22:44
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SeanBeansShako posted:Just flicking idly through my copy of Sahib by Richard Holmes doing a break down of 19th century British soldiers in India really. If you really want some hot weird man on man stuff, there apparently was a group of Highlanders during the 1780''s who hit on the Indian fishermen who were hired to help disembark and unload the regiment to shore at Bombay. They assumed they were women? They sound like rum-johnnies, a term which according to Hobson-Jobson could apply either to native servants who hung around wharves offering their services to new arrivals, or to female prostitutes.
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Apr 11, 2018 22:45
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If we're calling out best selling military historians whose works have had deleterious effects (and don't have to confine ourselves to WWII) I'd like to nominate Shelby Foote for helping perpetuate the Lost Cause.
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Apr 11, 2018 22:47
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spectralent posted:I just realised I typed "Two rifles, one man" and now you all have to imagine Zaytsev jumping out of windows double-headshotting with a pair of SVTs with me. "Two rifles to one man" sounds more like a problem of massive disorganization, which seems...at least more plausible than "dumb asiatic hordes"? At least in the early years of the GPW side of things.
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Apr 11, 2018 22:50
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spectralent posted:I just realised I typed "Two rifles, one man" and now you all have to imagine Zaytsev jumping out of windows double-headshotting with a pair of SVTs with me. 
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Apr 11, 2018 23:02
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I think it's kinda funny that somebody would look at the US rifle platoon(or armored rifle platoon for that matter) and see a bunch of leaders. A lot of what i've read of firsthand accounts is basically that it was really difficult to find enough leadership-capable men to do much of anything more complicated than following the squad leaders or platoon leader- in theory they were supposed to divy up their 12 man squads into fire, assault, and scout teams but in reality there just weren't enough people who could break off and operate independently like this. Things had to be kept simple- in the end, that kind of thing is what separated the parachute rifle platoons from, say, the rifle platoons of the 4th ID or 90th ID. And, from what I understand, every army had this problem in ww2 as the armies got way past the motivated volunteers/reservists. As I did more research on the US armored rifles, it kinda makes me laugh about how little anyone actually thought about tactics for them- there wasn't even a manual for them until late 1944.
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Apr 11, 2018 23:15
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Hell, just the other day I had a friend try to cite On Killing (a book which to my understanding is mainly sourced from SLAM's work) in a discussion about police violence. That loving guy. I hate that loving guy. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/02/14/a-day-with-killology-police-trainer-dave-grossman/?utm_term=.044b72eafd2b
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Apr 11, 2018 23:26
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Mr Enderby posted:They sound like rum-johnnies, a term which according to Hobson-Jobson could apply either to native servants who hung around wharves offering their services to new arrivals, or to female prostitutes. Nope. These men were actual fishermen who helped pilot the boats and flat bottomed platforms through the surf. These Highlanders have been confined in the hull of a boat for months and have never seen anyone Asian before. This happened in 1780 before the wharf was even built and they were just embarking as far up the coast from the boats as they could.
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Apr 11, 2018 23:45
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Was “on killing” the book that had the made up statistic that like 95% of soldiers would intentionally miss their target?
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Apr 11, 2018 23:51
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That 75% of guys in WW2 never even fired. e: Oh no wait, also the mis-aiming thing, yeah. PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Apr 12, 2018 |
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Apr 11, 2018 23:58
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Was “on killing” the book that had the made up statistic that like 95% of soldiers would intentionally miss their target? I've never read On Killing or Men Under Fire so anyone who has feel free to correct me, but: Men Under Fire by S.L.A. Marshall is the one that posits that most soldiers never intentionally fire their weapons to kill, based solely on Marshall's experience interviewing soldiers after combat operations. On Killing by David Grossman, using Men Under Fire as its basis, posits that this experience is widely applicable to human history, that very few people actually want to kill anyone else, and that for the police and military to do their jobs properly, they have to be desensitized to violence and the psychological effects of killing. Anyone who's studied history at all can tell you that both conclusions are absolutely bullshit and that man will happily kill his fellow man for a ham sandwich, but both books have gotten a lot of traction over the past 70/20 years, respectively.
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Apr 12, 2018 00:10
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spectralent posted:I just realised I typed "Two rifles, one man" and now you all have to imagine Zaytsev jumping out of windows double-headshotting with a pair of SVTs with me. two rifles, one man, brings to mind a new version of a certain video
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Apr 12, 2018 00:10
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Acebuckeye13 posted:I've never read On Killing or Men Under Fire so anyone who has feel free to correct me, but: A ham sandwich is way more motivation than most people need.
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Apr 12, 2018 00:13
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That statistic wasn't made up by Grossman was it? I thought he took it from SLA Marshall? One thing I remember about SLA Marshall is that earlier in the war, I think at Saipan, he went in as a combat historian intending to deliver a report on infantry combat effectiveness. He took notes and recorded that inexperienced soldiers just shot at everything and blew their loads. But later, when he wrote Men Against Fire, he just loving ignored that whole episode. There's a lot of spotty methodology in how he collected evidence for that book, but Marshall loving knew there was contradictory evidence. Slim Jim Pickens fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Apr 12, 2018 |
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Apr 12, 2018 00:18
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spectralent posted:I just realised I typed "Two rifles, one man" and now you all have to imagine Zaytsev jumping out of windows double-headshotting with a pair of SVTs with me. What do you guys think about the alleged Stalingrad sniper duel, made up? I've only seen the movie, not read the book
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Apr 12, 2018 00:37
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Davin Valkri posted:"Two rifles to one man" sounds more like a problem of massive disorganization, which seems...at least more plausible than "dumb asiatic hordes"? At least in the early years of the GPW side of things. it was more like we have three rifles for two guys, but two complete rifles are with one guy over here, and the guy 50 miles down the road has a M91/30 without a bolt
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Apr 12, 2018 01:25
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This guy has a rifle and a full set of ammunition assigned to him. Unfortunately it is in Moscow, while he is not.
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Apr 12, 2018 02:16
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Let's be honest - a lot of the people in this thread were that kid at one point. My grandpappy fought as a pfc in europe and used to threaten my father with shooting santa and saying the krauts wore camo so he can definitely bag a fat guy in a red suit
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Apr 12, 2018 02:20
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Davin Valkri posted:"Two rifles to one man" sounds more like a problem of massive disorganization, which seems...at least more plausible than "dumb asiatic hordes"? At least in the early years of the GPW side of things. The problem is when it is turned from 'this one incident' into 'this is how those Reds liked to do things'
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Apr 12, 2018 02:33
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Cyrano4747 posted:and because I have to go get really loving drunk because I think I just got a real grown up adult job holy poo poo Congrats!
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Apr 12, 2018 03:15
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Is there a fantasy novel where a Soviet mechanized brigade from WWII is transported to another world and tries to set up a Peoples Republic while fighting off Orcs and Elves that isn't Warhammer 40,000.
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Apr 12, 2018 03:17
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spectralent posted:I just realised I typed "Two rifles, one man" and now you all have to imagine Zaytsev jumping out of windows double-headshotting with a pair of SVTs with me. Mosins. He operates the bolt with his teeth.
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Apr 12, 2018 03:34
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Raenir Salazar posted:Is there a fantasy novel where a Soviet mechanized brigade from WWII is transported to another world and tries to set up a Peoples Republic while fighting off Orcs and Elves that isn't Warhammer 40,000.
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Apr 12, 2018 04:09
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Comrade Gorbash posted:I see you haven't met many military speculative fiction authors. They're more likely to write that scenario set around an Afrika Korps unit. it's a good scene edit: this also addresses one of my major problems with the 1632 series, which is the assumption that the people from the 20th century will end up dominating their surroundings and changing them without being changed by them. Watching Nazis attempt to interact with the people of the past as they would have with a conquered area, and then get their poo poo pushed in, would be entertaining. i'd just have to figure out a way to make their modern technology less important... HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Apr 12, 2018 |
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Apr 12, 2018 04:13
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HEY GUNS posted:now i'm imagining a 1632-alike where all the nazis end up slaughtered by pikes Of course the real way that would be written is the noble clean Wehrmacht Rommel-worshipping Colonel & his simple, good-hearted bratwurst loving tankers are saddled with a detachment of SS fanatics and some useless but funny Italians. They fight off the orcs and buddy up with the locals, except the SS guys want to liquidate everyone because they're all clearly subhumans, and the climax of the novel is a showdown between the Wehrmacht and SS groups during which the beautiful Elven princess who's spent the whole novel pretending she isn't attracted to the Colonel distracting the SS leader just long enough for the Colonel to take him out (with the old Templar sword passed down through his family from the olde days, naturally). Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Apr 12, 2018 |
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Apr 12, 2018 04:20
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Of course the real way that would be written is the noble clean Wehrmacht Rommel-worshipping Colonel is saddled with a detachment of SS fanatics and some useless but funny Italians.
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Apr 12, 2018 04:22
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HEY GUNS posted:
I'd say their logistics and maintenance needs would take care of that part pretty quickly.
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Apr 12, 2018 04:38
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HEY GUNS posted:i'd just have to figure out a way to make their modern technology less important... It's all gonna break down in a couple days anyway and, being German, be far too complex to actually repair.
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Apr 12, 2018 04:38
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and wait till they discover how supply works in their new home
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Apr 12, 2018 04:43
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HEY GUNS posted:and wait till they discover how supply works in their new home Stealing poo poo from the locals? Seems to work just about any era.
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Apr 12, 2018 04:46
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Comrade Gorbash posted:That is a good image. Lemme write this down, I think I can get some money out of Baen for this.
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Apr 12, 2018 04:47
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it's been a while since I've read any of the 1632 books, so remind me. The town that went back in time obviously starts with a huge technological advantage, but how do they maintain that? It's just one town in West Virginia that got magically transported to 17th century Saxony, right? So they're going to start out with a bunch of modern machines and tools and weapons and what have you, but would the town have either the industrial base or the expertise to maintain them? Eventually, parts are going to wear out and they're going to need replacements, and while they probably know enough to kick off the Industrial Revolution early, and let them make replacements, their, say, modern lathes are probably going to require parts that are constructed with tolerances and precision that they're not going to be able to make, because modern machine parts are mostly made by robots who can get precisions down to the level of microns,and no matter how talented a 17th century toolmaker is, they won't be able to do that well. Meanwhile, that tech is going to spread. Władysław Vasa of Poland or one of the German dukes or Emperor Ferdinand or Louis XIV or Phillip IV or Charles I or whoever are going to want to get their hands on better tools and weapons and so on, and since people in the 17th century were no dumber than people in the 20th century, that information is going to get out, and people are going to figure out how to reverse engineer stuff. Worst case scenario, they outright bribe an uptimer ("Hey, buddy, you're one of those strange engineers from the future, right? Come to France, tell us what you know, and the King will make you a count and give you all the livres you want.") I can't think that all of the West Virginians are so morally upright that they're immune to bribery. Point being, I have to think that whatever advantage the West Virginians start with is going to be eroded. That's just going to increase in the second generation, where the kids that were born in the 17th century aren't going to remember what life was like in 20th century West Virginia, aren't going to have the resources or base of knowledge their parents had, and while their parents might do their best to raise them like modern Americans with liberal, 20th century democratic values, are going to find themselves in a world where most of their neighbors take autocracy for granted. I know in the books, they ally themselves with Gustavus Adolphus and get Swedish support, but first, he's just one guy and not immortal, and second, while he'd no doubt be happy to ally with the Americans for the power it would give him, and while, from what I know of him, he was somewhat progressive for his time, he was still a 17th century autocrat, not a 20th century democrat, and his goals were the triumph of Lutheranism and the expansion of Swedish power, which probably aren't things the Americans really care that much about. So it's an alliance of convenience rather than one between two powers that share an ideology and common interests.
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Apr 12, 2018 05:14
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Epicurius posted:That's just going to increase in the second generation, where the kids that were born in the 17th century aren't going to remember what life was like in 20th century West Virginia, aren't going to have the resources or base of knowledge their parents had, and while their parents might do their best to raise them like modern Americans with liberal, 20th century democratic values, are going to find themselves in a world where most of their neighbors take autocracy for granted. The most symbolically striking illustration of the fundamental assumption of the dominance of the present over the past which underlies the entire series is that 17th century people are vulnerable to the diseases we carry but we are not vulnerable to theirs. Why? Our bacteria are "more evolved." A fortiriori our ideas and ways of life. One pleasant counterexample: the 17th century people assume the black character is well-educated and urbane because he's obviously Moorish to them.
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Apr 12, 2018 05:19
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HEY GUNS posted:i'd just have to figure out a way to make their modern technology less important... Running out of bullets for their Schmeissers.
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Apr 12, 2018 05:20
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I'm several books into the series at the moment. Pretty much immediately, the West Virginians decide that there is no way to maintain their tech level, and the best thing to do is to gradually transition to a 19th century level of technology. They do manage to get some oil refining going to fuel vehicles, but don't even try to manufacture electronics. By 1634, most of the nations of Europe are actively researching the technology brought back, and are spending enormous amounts of effort to steal copies of "up-time" encyclopedias and other books. At the point I've reached in the series, nations outside of the United States of Europe (essentially large chunks of Germany grafted on to the Swedish Empire) have developed electricity, only deliberate deception has prevented them from developing crude radios, and the French have exploited a major screw-up made by the Americans. When the West Virginians started mass-producing new weapons for Gustavus's armies, they decided that large-scale production of percussion caps and cartridges was impractical at the time, and instead decided to use flintlock rifle-muskets. The French managed to get percussion caps into mass production, and have started large-scale manufacturing of breechloading Sharps clones. The reaction of the "down-timers" to advanced technology is pretty well handled. The reaction to American "APCs" (coal haulers with armor hastily grafted on) is essentially "No fair! They hid the horses!", and the main reaction to airplanes is "drat, those things are annoying. We need to figure out how to build them."
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Apr 12, 2018 05:29
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Epicurius posted:it's been a while since I've read any of the 1632 books, so remind me. The town that went back in time obviously starts with a huge technological advantage, but how do they maintain that? It's just one town in West Virginia that got magically transported to 17th century Saxony, right? So they're going to start out with a bunch of modern machines and tools and weapons and what have you, but would the town have either the industrial base or the expertise to maintain them? Eventually, parts are going to wear out and they're going to need replacements, and while they probably know enough to kick off the Industrial Revolution early, and let them make replacements, their, say, modern lathes are probably going to require parts that are constructed with tolerances and precision that they're not going to be able to make, because modern machine parts are mostly made by robots who can get precisions down to the level of microns,and no matter how talented a 17th century toolmaker is, they won't be able to do that well. You would be surprised, any decent master craftsmen could probably make uptime stuff. But they would take like 6 months, a couple thousand dollars? (I don't know the currency but very expensive at least) and wouldn't be exactly the same. Precision tools and such could be made It's not impossible to make a small amounts of precision parts but it would just take an enormous amount of time with rulers, gauges, and fine tuning each part to make it work. The first book has them stating that they are aiming to build up to at least early to mid 19th century tech using their modern technology, I'm guessing approximately pre-ACW technology. Steam trains, Radios, percussion caps, industrial processes, electricity, ironclads, canning, improved farms/yields with machines, basic oil capability and planes which I think are a little early but they handwave it by using salvaged modern engines. Having 19th century tech is still way better than 17th century tech, even if they are from the 20th century.
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Apr 12, 2018 05:38
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Zorak of Michigan posted:I'm just finishing a re-read of it and it's hard to pull real zingers out of it. It's purely autobiographical, so you get the occasional mention of the fearsome Tiger or whatever, but nothing I could call out as bad history. He had some pretty lousy ideas, and there are plenty of things you could call out as bad strategy, and there are places where his account of a conversation or decision is a bit self-aggrandizing, but I think that's the nature of autobiography. Churchill is not the guy to write, "In retrospect, all my ideas about the soft underbelly of Europe were embarrassingly foolish." They're a good read. Churchill for all his faults and raging imperialism, is one hell of a writer. It's also probably the only source in military history written by a head of state during the actual conflict. "So I called <allied head of state>..." is a sentence very few authors could produce. He's biased, he leaves stuff out, he has bad ideas, but it's all about stuff that the prime minister of England did and said written by someone who'd know what that person was actually thinking. For bad ideas, let's take his proposed Baltic invasion. It sure looks risky at a first glance as a layperson. There are technical challenges only experts can appreciate (mines, land-based dive bombers, etc.). However, when you look at a map of Europe, with the coastlines marked by how defended they are and proximity to valuable objectives, the Baltic coastline of Germany (Imperial or Nazi), that actually looks like a nice place to be able to land and supply a couple of army corps. So you ask your experts if it's feasible, and you make them do actual work instead of giving you gut reactions. The end result is "lol, nope", but exploring every possibility is one of the keys to strategic success. In the period after Dunkirk, where the Luftwaffe was unable to interdict the evacuation, the idea that the Luftwaffe would be unable to interdict an invasion is a thought worth pursuing. In short, he gets laughed at for some of his ideas, but no credit for listening to the professionals once they'd done their homework. From the Baltic to the Soft Underbelly, I don't think he gets enough credit for the concept of hitting the Dardanelles. I am inclined to blame the British Army and Royal Navy for screwing it up. The failures of leadership by both service branches are undisputed. But I haven't ever seen (and I'll check sources if provided) anything conclusive that shows that landing a strong marine force total and destroy the forts after the successful first bombardment phase. Everything I've read shows that the delay between the bombardment and boots on beaches weeks later that allowed the Turks to repair forts and move up troops. Even his proposed Balkans followup to Italy made sense from the perspective someone looking at a map. Once through the coastal mountains, you're on a vast plain with a clear shot at Vienna. If the Western allies had beaten the USSR to Vienna and Budapest, that would have had a big impact on how the Cold War played out. So you have the experts analyst the prospects. If they say no, you don't do it.
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Apr 12, 2018 05:55
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It's just pretty funny to see radios casually being referred to as 19th century tech, especially pre-Civil War. The first practical short-distance, 2-6 miles, morse code type transmissions managed to be carried out in 1894, with successful voice transmission at similar range coming in 1900 (Though we got morse code type transmission transatlantic in 1901 using extremely powerful broadcasting stations). As it turned out, all the things we needed to build the first radio transmitters and receivers that actually worked in the 1890s up to the World War I era did use technology that would be available before the Civil War, eg the early short burning incandescent bulbs of the 1840s and 1850s meant manufacturing techniques that turned out good enough for early vacuum tubes, electric generators were already around and so on. But it's put together in ways that just weren't figured out before the Civil War, much as incandescent bulbs and home electrification weren't really figured out in a mass usable way til the 1870s. I believe I linked this earlier in the thread, but the Navy's history on electrical communications methods published in 1963 has a lot of detail on radio in general, and its use for the NAvy in particular, including how the Navy sought to monopolize radio broadcasting in the US as the government agency in charge of it before agencies like the FCC were created to ensure the airwaves would be in civilian hands for the most part. http://earlyradiohistory.us/1963hw.htm " History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy with an introduction by FLEET ADMIRAL CHESTER W. NIMITZ, USN Prepared by CAPTAIN L. S. HOWETH, USN (Retired) under the auspices of BUREAU OF SHIPS AND OFFICE OF NAVAL HISTORY WASHINGTON: 1963"
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Apr 12, 2018 06:00
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They'd probably have access to antibacterial soap for a while, which'd cut down on the disease, but after that ran out, they'd be real hosed by all the festering disease to which they'd have no resistance from long-term exposure that people of the era would have. Best case scenario maybe their modern vaccines can keep out the big bugs for a generation, but nobody gets vaccinated for smallpox anymore. And I don't even know how they'd deal with having to create a whole new system of plumbing, considering how their water sources would be left back 400 years in the future in Virginia. Or is that taken too? How desperate for food will these people be after their preserved goods run out and they're stuck with a whole town's worth of empty stomachs and most of Europe's arable farmland already accounted for by legitimate non-time-traveling landlords? Are they supposed to quickly become a hub of trade or manufacturing? Darn, now I'm stuck wondering what the plot of this book is...this is how they getcha.
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Apr 12, 2018 06:09
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So I recently watched The Terror(fun little series) and got curious about warship names. Can anyone recommend me a book on the subject? Not looking at any particular nation or timeframe as such, just got a general curiousity about how naming conventions change over time. Feels to me like there should a book explaining how a country goes from "Erebus" and "Terror" to "Gay Viking" in 100 years.
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Apr 12, 2018 06:09
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