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sullat posted:I think the British called theirs the "Canadian" Corps. I believe you mean the Anzacs. Australia-New Zealand Amalgamated Convicts.
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Jun 26, 2018 00:11
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Tias posted:Ooo, that reminds me: I'll be writing a medium-length CYOA about the Vietnam War in Games. It's not going to be strictly historical, but if anyone can point me towards a resource of Vietnam memoirs (particularly US Army), it'd be much appreciated! "You meet Jane Fonda. Do you say:" A) "Goodnight Jane Fonda." OR B) "Excuse me, you're sitting in my seat."
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Jun 26, 2018 00:25
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Cessna posted:There's also the 500th SS Parachute Battalion: half volunteer, half "penal." Infamous for trying to kill Tito via a raid, which failed. "We need elite troops with no scruples, good improvisation, and the ability to carry out specific, important missions." "I can get you two out of three."
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Jun 26, 2018 00:27
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Days of Valor by Robert Tonsetic is about Army cavalry actions; Tonsetic was an officer in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade. It’s more of an operational survey of six months of battle. I think Tonsetic wrote another book that’s more of a memoir, but I haven’t read it. Land With No Sun by Ted G. Arthurs is about the author’s year as the sergeant major of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. It was a really colorful book that was a great perspective on the enlisted side of the war. Link that CYOA when it’s up, Tias!
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Jun 26, 2018 01:31
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Zamboni Apocalypse posted:I believe you mean the Anzacs. Australia-New Zealand Amalgamated Convicts. You mean the United States Army PS convicts weren't transported to New Zealand
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Jun 26, 2018 01:45
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Actively watching The Death of Stalin. Zhukov shrugging off his coat in slow motion is even better in context of the movie, can confirm. Also this movie basically requires you to drink vodka while you watch it. A+, this is a good movie.
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Jun 26, 2018 01:59
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GotLag posted:You mean the United States Army I found this out from family history stuff, it sounds like half the lovely farming village my ancestors lived in somewhere in Suffolk picked up and moved to New Zealand.
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Jun 26, 2018 02:31
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Cyrano4747 posted:Sure they do. The Typhoon class is the one most people think of, but they had a few older ones as well. I think they've got a new one that they put together to replace the typhoons they inherited from the USSR. Last year during my slow decent into madness, I did a data dump on the subject in the cold war thread. What I discovered was the Soviets built ballistic missile subs like America builds aircraft carriers: so may more than basically everyone else. Just by Wikipedia (strength counts for the modern Russian navy are always a bit wonky) They have some old Delta IVs still in service, a single Typhoon class as their SLBM test bed, and the new Boreli class, which was extremely necessary for the Russian navy to develop, as Soviet ships were developed with little eye for running costs. The Typhoons were modern, but super expensive to run, and the Delta IV is a pretty old design. The Soviets, rather uniquely, developed nuclear subs that specialized in spamming cruise missiles that can take nuclear warheads, so those guys could gently caress up a seaboard too if necessary Nebakenezzer posted:SSBNs:
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Jun 26, 2018 02:50
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Soviet Union/Russia 
United States 
Great Britain 
France 
China 
India 
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Although this isn't technically military history, what would be the best books to read about the beginning and rise of the First Industrial Revolution?
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Jun 26, 2018 02:51
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WW2 Data Finally, the Army's bombs are up for examination. What modifications were brought about to create the AN - Army-Navy bomb series? What was the name of the series of bombs before it became "General Purpose - High Explosive"? Which bombs are converted from artillery shells? All that and more at the blog!
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Jun 26, 2018 02:59
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Nebakenezzer posted:The Soviets, rather uniquely, developed nuclear subs that specialized in spamming cruise missiles that can take nuclear warheads, so those guys could gently caress up a seaboard too if necessary I'm kinda confused about this (and have been for a while). Mostly it revolves around the differences and overlaps between cruise, ballistic and anti-ship missiles. Couldn't all of the above be nuclear tipped (and i imagine the cold war and probably post slbm exclusively would be for second strikes) in case poo poo went sideways in ww3? If so, what strategic differences would there be between the cruise missiles and ballistic missiles be (I assume trajectory and speed)? Since there were tomahawk cruise missiles with nuclear payloads, even a mere destroyer would be provide some sort of local-ish devastation with cruise missiles but aside from the obvious advantages of being a submarine, why would a submarine opt for cruise missiles rather than slbm?
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Jun 26, 2018 03:06
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Milo and POTUS posted:I'm kinda confused about this (and have been for a while). Mostly it revolves around the differences and overlaps between cruise, ballistic and anti-ship missiles. Couldn't all of the above be nuclear tipped (and i imagine the cold war and probably post slbm exclusively would be for second strikes) in case poo poo went sideways in ww3? If so, what strategic differences would there be between the cruise missiles and ballistic missiles be (I assume trajectory and speed)? Since there were tomahawk cruise missiles with nuclear payloads, even a mere destroyer would be provide some sort of local-ish devastation with cruise missiles but aside from the obvious advantages of being a submarine, why would a submarine opt for cruise missiles rather than slbm? Ballistic missiles carry a much larger payload and have a longer range. They are much larger, and require a proportionately larger launch system. It's possible for an attack sub - whose main job is to hunt ships and other subs - to carry cruise missiles. It takes a larger sub to carry big ballistic missiles.
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Jun 26, 2018 03:17
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Cruise missiles also fly a very different profile from ballistic missiles, and don't produce anywhere near as obvious a signature on launch. In the middle of a nuclear exchange, an enemy focused on tracking inbound ballistic birds could easily fail to notice launching cruise missiles, and it is plausible to hope that a few cruise missiles could slip through the defense network and strike undetected where a ballistic missile would not. Since the only reliable defense against a nuclear warhead is being somewhere else when it goes off, not letting somebody know that the nuke is on the way has a certain appeal.
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Jun 26, 2018 03:26
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Xiahou Dun posted:Actively watching The Death of Stalin. Brezhnev was the best character in that movie, followed shortly by Vasily.
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Jun 26, 2018 03:36
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Milo and POTUS posted:I'm kinda confused about this (and have been for a while). Mostly it revolves around the differences and overlaps between cruise, ballistic and anti-ship missiles. Couldn't all of the above be nuclear tipped (and i imagine the cold war and probably post slbm exclusively would be for second strikes) in case poo poo went sideways in ww3? If so, what strategic differences would there be between the cruise missiles and ballistic missiles be (I assume trajectory and speed)? Since there were tomahawk cruise missiles with nuclear payloads, even a mere destroyer would be provide some sort of local-ish devastation with cruise missiles but aside from the obvious advantages of being a submarine, why would a submarine opt for cruise missiles rather than slbm? In addition to the other good answers, AFAIK the Soviets developed the cruise missile spammers for varying reasons. The Echo I was just for hitting land targets, as kind of a supplement till they were confidant of SSBNs. Echo IIs were for spamming naval missiles against big surface targets (and they had to surface to do it, kinda scary). The Charlie class, I and II, had the same mission as Echo IIs but were built to be normal attack boats when not launching missiles. The single Papa class hull was part experiment, part improvement on the Echo class. (First sub with a titanium hull AND twin nuclear reactors! And then she fragged one of her reactors and was abandoned by the Soviets in 1980, despite being so expensive to make she was known as the 'golden fish.') Oscar class, I and II, are kinda MEGA versions of the Charlie class, carrying enough missiles to destroy a carrier group by itself, and can function as an attack boat. Are their hulls titanium alloy?
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Jun 26, 2018 03:53
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Jaguars! posted:Vietnam: The definitive oral history by Christian G Appy. Has a huge array of short histories ranging from vietnamese peasants to William Westmoreland (He regrets nothing) Do any historians like Westmoreland or think he made good decisions? I have a very negative impression of his conduct in the war but I'm suspicious that may just be due to blame shifting from folks like McNamara.
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Jun 26, 2018 04:11
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Squalid posted:Do any historians like Westmoreland or think he made good decisions? I have a very negative impression of his conduct in the war but I'm suspicious that may just be due to blame shifting from folks like McNamara. Basically, there are four bios of Westmoreland out there...Ernest Ferguson's "Westmoreland: The Inevitable General (written in 1968) is really overly positive. There's Zaffrini's book "Westmoreland", which argues that Westmoreland was a decent general who was forced into a strategy he didn't like by the administration and Defense Department. There's "Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, by Lewis Sorely, which is really negative. Then there's a fairly recent one, Gregory Daddis's "Westmoreland’s War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam", which argues that Westmoreland was a good general, but the sheer breadth of what the military was asked to do in Vietnam and the lack of a grand strategy by US policymakers made Vietnam unwinnable.
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Jun 26, 2018 05:26
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JcDent posted:On a related topic, what can you tell me about penal units in other WWII armies? Finland, to my knowledge, didn't have special punishment units for soldiers who committed crimes (I think for serious crimes you would get sent to prison, some soldiers were shot for "cowardice" but the exact amount is a matter of great debate). There was the 21st Detached Battalion, also called the Black Arrow (https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erillinen_Pataljoona_21 sadly this is in Finnish only) which initially consisted of 500+ volunteer normal convicts (burglars, murderers, etc) and 200+ individuals who had been interned for political reasons (read: for being communists). After some of the political people deserted the rest were sent back to prison, but the convicts remained in service and the unit performed with some distinction. It was commanded for most of the war by the somewhat exentric colonel Nikke Pärmi, who himself had done 3 years for knifing a man to death at the age of 19. There is a story about how Pärmi interviewed every new member of the battalion personally and asked what crimes they had committed. After one of them telling him that he had been convicted of 2nd degree murder Pärmi supposedly replied "good, good, the war needs professionals." My grandfather had a story about this unit. Once the war was over and the various units were being demobilized a detachment of the Black Arrow was housed in tents next on the fields around my grandfathers house (they lived right next to the border). His mother was concerned, because her husband had died some years earlier, the eldest of her kids was 15 and the unit was known to consist of volunteer criminals. She told a sergeant of the unit that she was worried about them causing trouble and the sergeant supposedly patted his SMG and said "don't worry madam, I'll keep them in line." In the end, they didn't steal or break anything. One soldier of the unit tried to trade my grandfather an automatic rifle for a kilogram of butter (at the time rationed and very much in demand), but my great-grandmother wouldn't permit it. Ataxerxes fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Jun 26, 2018 |
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Jun 26, 2018 05:38
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Squalid posted:Do any historians like Westmoreland or think he made good decisions? Depends on the historian. Vietnam War historiography is often - well, let's just say "contentious..."
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Jun 26, 2018 15:01
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Squalid posted:Do any historians like Westmoreland or think he made good decisions? I have a very negative impression of his conduct in the war but I'm suspicious that may just be due to blame shifting from folks like McNamara. I think his legacy is comparable to a lot of WWI generals, in that he was kind of caught between eras. An entire career's worth of learning was pretty useless: he grew up in the WWII/Korea army, and then got where he was by being the most astute of the technocrats that dominated mid-Cold War defense policy. So, take that background into account: he saw American artillery and airpower wreck poo poo in Africa, Italy, and Germany, and his entire mid-career was spent in the McNamara technocracy. He understood the political dynamics in Vietnam perfectly well: he knew it was a contest of political will and not of territory, and he knew that the North Vietnamese were running a very sophisticated early variant of what we now call hybrid warfare. Where he hosed up was when he decided that attrition/bodycount/math was the way to win...which, admittedly made perfect sense from his perspective, but was basically a generation old at that point. I'm not sure that any general could have come up with a useful solution in Vietnam, so I'm always hesitant to criticize his strategic approach. What I'm happy to criticize is his conduct after the war: he never seemed to understand what had actually happened there, and he defended his conduct and US policy there to the point of extreme annoyance.
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Jun 26, 2018 15:17
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bewbies posted:I'm not sure that any general could have come up with a useful solution in Vietnam, so I'm always hesitant to criticize his strategic approach. I know I'm flying the USMC flag to excess here, but many of the USMC generals had ideas on how to conduct the war that were very different from those of the army. Very, very brief summary: Link. I can recommend books on this subject if you're interested. YES, Vietnam was one of those wars where "the only way to win is not to play," and it is entirely possible that their efforts would have failed just as badly. But when the Marines were saying "we've had years of experience in counterinsurgency experience in Central America, have you ever considered trying..." the Army's answer was "shut up and kill more people, you dumb jarheads."
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Jun 26, 2018 15:38
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bewbies posted:I think his legacy is comparable to a lot of WWI generals, in that he was kind of caught between eras. An entire career's worth of learning was pretty useless: he grew up in the WWII/Korea army, and then got where he was by being the most astute of the technocrats that dominated mid-Cold War defense policy. I started watching Ken Burn's documentary again and it describes how during the Johnson administration the military leadership constantly advocated for escalation. It doesn't really go much detail though, so its hard to get a sense of what the internal debates were really like. Ultimately its not the General's job to say if the United States should or should not fight a war, but instead to give Presidents good advice how wars should be fought, if one is to fight them. I wonder how much Johnson was making absurd demands on his General Staff, vs how much were they over promising. Also that article on the Marine's ideas about Vietnam looks promising, I'll probably read it this evening. I've read most of the small war's manual, but I was under the impression it and the other lessons learned fighting in Latin America were largely forgotten after WWII. The way the USMC fought wars in e.g. Haiti during the early 20th century was crazy, like one marine and his mistress ruling a village by fiat like Colonel Kurtz crazy.
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Jun 26, 2018 16:03
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Squalid posted:I've read most of the small war's manual, but I was under the impression it and the other lessons learned fighting in Latin America were largely forgotten after WWII. Even some of the WWII experience - think "jungle fighting on Guadalcanal" - was useful, but, again, ignored or dismissed by the army. Edit: Squalid posted:like one marine and his mistress ruling a village by fiat like Colonel Kurtz crazy. Don't judge my personal life!
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Jun 26, 2018 16:11
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If any of you are praying people, one of my job applications made it from the paper stage to the interview stage, and I have a Skype interview on the 16th of July. Your prayers/crystal auras/atheist well-wishes/bloody sacrifices would be appreciated.
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Jun 26, 2018 19:05
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HEY GUNS posted:If any of you are praying people, one of my job applications made it from the paper stage to the interview stage, and I have a Skype interview on the 16th of July. Your prayers/crystal auras/atheist well-wishes/bloody sacrifices would be appreciated. I'll see if I can convince someone to dedicate the next 3-pounder we fire to you.
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Jun 26, 2018 19:13
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HEY GUNS posted:If any of you are praying people, one of my job applications made it from the paper stage to the interview stage, and I have a Skype interview on the 16th of July. Your prayers/crystal auras/atheist well-wishes/bloody sacrifices would be appreciated. Good Atheist Well-Wishes to you and Good Pagan Luck as well!
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Jun 26, 2018 19:16
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Tomn posted:I'll see if I can convince someone to dedicate the next 3-pounder we fire to you.
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Jun 26, 2018 19:22
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Is there a pike equivalent of a 21-gun salute? I’ll wish that
Ainsley McTree fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Jun 26, 2018 |
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Jun 26, 2018 19:44
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HEY GUNS posted:If any of you are praying people, one of my job applications made it from the paper stage to the interview stage, and I have a Skype interview on the 16th of July. Your prayers/crystal auras/atheist well-wishes/bloody sacrifices would be appreciated. I am sure that there is some good luck tradition from the mercenary companies you have studied that you can start doing until the 16th.
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Jun 26, 2018 19:50
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HEY GUNS posted:If any of you are praying people, one of my job applications made it from the paper stage to the interview stage, and I have a Skype interview on the 16th of July. Your prayers/crystal auras/atheist well-wishes/bloody sacrifices would be appreciated. If a bullet that did not kill someone makes you immune to bullets would a bullet from somebody who got a job make them give the job to you? Godspeed/Paganspeed, there sure aren't enough jobs in this field.
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Jun 26, 2018 20:01
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If that was the case, 50cent could make like 9 new rappers overnight.
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Jun 26, 2018 20:30
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JcDent posted:If that was the case, 50cent could make like 9 new rappers overnight.
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Jun 26, 2018 20:33
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HEY GUNS posted:that's not how apostolic succession works Chrystler vaccante
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Jun 26, 2018 20:37
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HEY GUNS posted:If any of you are praying people, one of my job applications made it from the paper stage to the interview stage, and I have a Skype interview on the 16th of July. Your prayers/crystal auras/atheist well-wishes/bloody sacrifices would be appreciated. thoughts
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Jun 26, 2018 21:52
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How deep formations did cavalry use in the Napoleonic Wars when charging? How about in other eras?
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Jun 26, 2018 21:55
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HEY GUNS posted:If any of you are praying people, one of my job applications made it from the paper stage to the interview stage, and I have a Skype interview on the 16th of July. Your prayers/crystal auras/atheist well-wishes/bloody sacrifices would be appreciated. Congrats on getting an interview! I'll have my finest priestess inscribe a curse against the other applicants on a piece of gold plated lead and bury it in a place of power.
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Jun 26, 2018 21:57
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HEY GUNS posted:If any of you are praying people, one of my job applications made it from the paper stage to the interview stage, and I have a Skype interview on the 16th of July. Your prayers/crystal auras/atheist well-wishes/bloody sacrifices would be appreciated.  Good luck.
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Jun 26, 2018 21:58
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Cessna posted:I know I'm flying the USMC flag to excess here, but many of the USMC generals had ideas on how to conduct the war that were very different from those of the army. I think the main problem is that counterinsurgency approaches were tried well before the US even arrived in that kind of force- the trigger of US intervention was the increasing conventional capability of the forces opposed to the SVN government- VC regiments and divisions were popping up, and the SVN government had a lot more trouble dealing with those sorts of units. The big example was Malaya, but I think it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of both Vietnam and Malaya to presume that the same strategies would have worked in both situations. Indeed, the US and SVN government did many of the things that would make sense in the COIN mold, CIDGs, Strategic Hamlets, RF/PF troops that would be needed, but the countermeasure adopted by the VC was using its increased mobilization to put significant pressure on these things, hence the big US involvement. This kind of thing has been tried in counterinsurgency ever since, and it still hasn't really done much. Westmoreland was fighting the Korean War as he saw it, but I don't think the USMC was a whole lot better. The US eventually did manage to find a way to make the SVN government work.. sort of. The problem is that there was no way the SVN government could sustain such a massive army and air force without US help, and they needed direct US air support anyway. The ARVN of 1972 was a strong force so long as the US aid spigot and willingness to provide air support was there, but it wasn't a really sustainable government. South Vietnam was far too poor and devastated for that. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Jun 26, 2018 |
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Jun 26, 2018 22:49
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Yeah reading through the USMC perspective I didn't see a whole lot of daylight between that and the COIN programs that were (poorly) implemented.
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Jun 26, 2018 22:59
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Panzeh posted:I think the main problem is that counterinsurgency approaches were tried well before the US even arrived in that kind of force- the trigger of US intervention was the increasing conventional capability of the forces opposed to the SVN government- VC regiments and divisions were popping up, and the SVN government had a lot more trouble dealing with those sorts of units. Sure - I'm not advocating abandoning conventional warfare. Rather, I'm in favor of using the right tool for the situation. The Army favored using overwhelming firepower and conventional war to an extent that it became seriously counterproductive. Perhaps a more nuanced approach would have done better. I'll also point out that larger VC units don't appear unless you've already ticked off the locals. NVA, yes - and they're the ones you use conventional warfare to fight. But VC (more accurately, PLAF) require local support. Panzeh posted:This kind of thing has been tried in counterinsurgency ever since, and it still hasn't really done much. Westmoreland was fighting the Korean War as he saw it, but I don't think the USMC was a whole lot better. I've stated up front that it is entirely possible that Vietnam was unwinnable. But to not even try the methods proposed by the USMC seems a poor choice in retrospect. Panzeh posted:The problem is that there was no way the SVN government could sustain such a massive army and air force without US help, and they needed direct US air support anyway. The ARVN of 1972 was a strong force so long as the US aid spigot and willingness to provide air support was there, but it wasn't a really sustainable government. South Vietnam was far too poor and devastated for that. No disagreement from me there.
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Jun 26, 2018 23:06
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