|
Wounded means you're taken out of the line to a regimental aid post or or casualty clearing station or field ambulance for treatment of whatever wounded you. Evacuated means that your injuries or illnesses are such that you can't be treated on the line so you're being evacuated to a hospital off the front "Invalidated to Eng." means that whatever wounded you is so serious you can't be treated and expected to recover in France so you're being shipped back to England
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 22:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 22:42 |
|
|
Ice Fist posted:I have a question for the thread: A while back we had a few guys, including me, post letters written by grandparents. I posted a handful of excerpts from my grandfather's personal letters written post war in Europe. The records were lost in a fire.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 22:26
|
|
|
Slim Jim Pickens posted:Bombers with a half-load of bombs, and a half-load of paras. The bombs fall faster than the paras, they land having achieved maximum surprise and efficacy Isn't this what they do in Starship Troopers, or am I just confusing them for the decoy pods they drop along the mobile troopers?
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 22:36
|
|
|
Greggster posted:Isn't this what they do in Starship Troopers, or am I just confusing them for the decoy pods they drop along the mobile troopers? You're confusing them. The problem with the bombs and paras idea is that the paras would be dropping straight into any ongoing explosions, fire, and debris getting blown upwards into the paras.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 22:42
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:You're confusing them. The problem with the bombs and paras idea is that the paras would be dropping straight into any ongoing explosions, fire, and debris getting blown upwards into the paras. Perhaps they should increase their élan
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 22:53
|
|
|
Siivola posted:I enjoyed Dan Jones's Templars. That looks good. It’s unfortunate that it’s difficult to get academic texts in an audio version, which definitely restricts what I can find.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 23:00
|
|
|
HEY GUNS posted:saber duels mostly Speaking of, tell me about infantry use of sabers in your era. The usual answer I see on 16th/17th century sabers is that outside of messer/dussack style things, sabers were more of an Eastern European cavalry thing and comparatively rarer (though not unknown or unheard of) as you get further west. So you'd see more of them with eastern european mercenary cav or whatever. Was it A Thing for some infantrymen to use them? I know British officers in the Napoleonic period sometimes preferred cavalry sabers or occasionally even picked up Indian tulwars. Are there equivalent 17th century proto-weebs who want to adopt some Ottoman trappings?
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 23:03
|
|
|
zoux posted:Perhaps they should increase their élan They should just fall slower Or the bombs can fall faster. Put a small rocket engine in their tails maybe?
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 23:22
|
|
|
Ice Fist posted:I have a question for the thread: A while back we had a few guys, including me, post letters written by grandparents. I posted a handful of excerpts from my grandfather's personal letters written post war in Europe. As long as you know his unit, you can probably find out whether their archives exist and where they're kept. If you were in Britain I'd suggest investigating the National Archives (for his personal service record), the regimental history museum of whatever his successor unit is, if there is one (for the battalion war diary, the thing that Clarence is posting for someone else in a different war), and also looking on Google Books/Amazon/archive.org/Gutenberg to see if anyone had published (possibly privately) some book along the lines of "The Exploits of the 10th Catering Corps in the War". Whatever your equivalents are of that, I guess.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 23:28
|
|
|
Grenrow posted:tell me about infantry use of sabers in your era. The usual answer I see on 16th/17th century sabers is that outside of messer/dussack style things, sabers were more of an Eastern European cavalry thing and comparatively rarer (though not unknown or unheard of) as you get further west. So you'd see more of them with eastern european mercenary cav or whatever. Was it A Thing for some infantrymen to use them? anyone have $3000? https://getasword.com/antique-swords/2983-authentic-felddegen-field-sword-17th-century.html what about $300? https://www.dorotheum.com/cz/aukce/...ky-17-stol.html the second issue is that i have seen plenty of poo poo in the museum in dresden which are western swords with ottoman/balkan grips or ottoman/balkan swords with western grips. there are a lot of these and they look absurd. so the end is i dunno quote:I know British officers in the Napoleonic period sometimes preferred cavalry sabers or occasionally even picked up Indian tulwars. Are there equivalent 17th century proto-weebs who want to adopt some Ottoman trappings? these objects are added to all the poo poo that filtered into saxony from the ottoman empire and transylvania over the centuries which, if you look at a map, it's pretty well placed to get some. such as my favorite sword ever, a transylvanian katana which is now in the museum at dresden.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 23:57
|
|
|
Slim Jim Pickens posted:Bombers with a half-load of bombs, and a half-load of paras. The bombs fall faster than the paras, they land having achieved maximum surprise and efficacy Check Jobbo Fett's posts about Italian airplanes a while back. I remember something like this coming up. e: Hereabouts: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3785167&pagenumber=825&perpage=40#post480435973 OpenlyEvilJello fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Aug 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 00:00
|
|
|
Slim Jim Pickens posted:They should just fall slower Use more incendiary bombs. Hot air rises, ride the updraft until explosion is over. Do they teach paratroopers to shoot from the air? It seems like the least you could do if you're teaching them procedures for drifting slowly into enemy fire. I can understand maybe air dropping soldiers into not-hostile territory if there's no available airfield, but onto an enemy emplacement with no tanks, cover, or even the sweet embrace of the earth to shield you from harm?
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 00:02
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:but onto an enemy emplacement with no tanks, cover, or even the sweet embrace of the earth to shield you from harm? That is not how airborne ops work. No, they don't shoot from the air. No time for that and you're operating a chute. mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Aug 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 00:05
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:Use more incendiary bombs. Hot air rises, ride the updraft until explosion is over. they don't drop paratroopers on top of the enemy position like some video game
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 00:13
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:Use more incendiary bombs. Hot air rises, ride the updraft until explosion is over. You generally don’t drop with your weapon ready or accessible. Germans dropped separately from their guns which came down in canisters. Americans dropped with their guns in a bag along side them but (theoretically) attached. You’re not going to be able to hit gently caress all dropping and it’s going to be dangerous. I don’t k ow the details but there more to para dropping than just riding down. Do it wrong and you’re breaking an ankle at best. That’s before we get into whether the recoil from your weapon is going to make you start swinging in a weird way. Even in a combat drop you’re not coming down on top of the enemy’s head. The idea is to use the mobility air drops provide to go where they won’t be, organize on the ground, and then be a very inconvenient band of light infantry in their rear to distract from the armored thrust coming down the road. Edit: I’m talking about large formation stuff. Spec ops dropping a bunch of commandos on someone’s doorstep to gently caress things up is another issue. Then you get poo poo like fort eben emal
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 00:22
|
|
|
zoux posted:Reading wikipedia, the conclusion seems to be that paratroopers aren't as good as helicopters and furthermore there have only been a handful of combat drops since WWII. The last US combat jump was in 2003. How many troops go to jump school in the US every year? Are paratroopers part of near-peer war planning anymore? The helicopter pretty much replaced parachuting circa Vietnam, but all airborne/Ranger/SF guys still go to jump school just in case. mlmp08 posted:or, more often, stepping out of helicopters. It's a long step -- at least in Dad's experience, the chopper pilots refused to touch down for fear of land mines/ambushs. The really nice/ballsy pilots sometimes even slowed down when it came time for their cargo to hop out. Also, that 1796 saber I forgot I boight arrived today, will write a review when I get it out of the packaging and cleaned up. One thin is certain, it didn't rust in transit -- reminds me of the SKS/Mosin crazes, it's packed Soviet-style with preservative grease. Brb, gonna use up half a roll of paper towels on it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 02:26
|
|
Bad Angus! Bad!
|
Grenrow posted:Speaking of, tell me about infantry use of sabers in your era. The usual answer I see on 16th/17th century sabers is that outside of messer/dussack style things, sabers were more of an Eastern European cavalry thing and comparatively rarer (though not unknown or unheard of) as you get further west. So you'd see more of them with eastern european mercenary cav or whatever. Was it A Thing for some infantrymen to use them? I know British officers in the Napoleonic period sometimes preferred cavalry sabers or occasionally even picked up Indian tulwars. Are there equivalent 17th century proto-weebs who want to adopt some Ottoman trappings? Most napoleonic cav had sabres or straight swords as the primary arme blanche. The only exception are lancers.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 02:35
|
|
|
HEY GUNS posted:
Cool, thanks. I hope there are a bunch of paintings of this dumb nerd cosplaying an Ottoman. Was that controversial at the time or did everyone just dismiss it as this dude being a dweeb? KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Most napoleonic cav had sabres or straight swords as the primary arme blanche. The only exception are lancers. Sorry, I meant infantry officers, not cav. Lots of infantry officer, especially skirmishers and anyone who was going to be in colonial combat, got extremely interested in swapping out their regulation smallswords or spadroons for something a bit more robust. Lot of 1796 light cav sabers got into infantry officer's hands.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 03:29
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Most napoleonic cav had sabres or straight swords as the primary arme blanche. The only exception are lancers. Didn't the French have a thing like lancers but with swords? I mean, the English heavy cav had straight swords (edit: and speaking of foot soldiers adopting cavalry blades, Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe famously carried a 1796 Heavy, a straight stabby sword. Light was for slicing faces off in the melee, Heavy/Lancers was for the charge to break the lines.) but I recall reading about French troopers with really long swords -- like 43" blades, as opposed to the three-footers you actually swing. Got the 1796L mostly degreased, though it's still got cosmoline in the tight corners. Pulling the plastic bags off the blade and scabbard was disturbingly like removing a condom. It looks  as gently caress, with that deep curve -- it's straight-up an old-school scimitar with a European hilt. Like, draw a line from your thumb, it crosses the blade and goes off into space before the sharp part even starts. Seems to be fairly well-balanced, a bit more weight-forward than the Japanese Type 32/1899 NCO saber my grandfather brought back from WWII, but that's to be expected, given the different purposes. Definitely better than the cheap lovely Indian repro of a US 1840 I impulse-bought for $50 at my favorite gun store. That was an obvious wallhanger/watermelon cutter, this is a legit weapon. It's sharpened properly, completely dull on the bottom half, as sharp as a kitchen knife for the working half, as well as 6" of the back of the tip. Tomorrow I need to go to the grocery store and talk to the produce manager, see if I can get a deal on some expired melons. Eventually I need to get my brother's giant pet horse (mostly quarterhorse, I think) trained as a cav horse.  Right now he's one of those horses that if you put a small child on his back, he just allows himself to be led around. If an adult gets on, they suddenly find themselves suspended mid-air a horse-height off the ground with the horse at the far end of the pasture, like when Wile E. Coyote falls off a cliff.
Chillbro Baggins fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Aug 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 03:50
|
|
|
Lancers and Uhlans still carried swords because they still are their main sidearms.
|
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 03:58
|
|
|
Chillbro Baggins posted:
19th century Indians thought so too. Sometimes they took imported 1796-pattern blades and stick tulwar hilts on them.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 04:06
|
|
|
SeanBeansShako posted:Lancers and Uhlans still carried swords because they still are their main sidearms. Yeah, those Frenchmen and Lancers I mentioned also carried curved sabers for the melee, because long pokey thing is not so useful without the momentum of a galloping horse behind it. 1796L review continued: I can balance it on my finger about eight inches forward of the guard. That seems about right. Edit: I kind of have a thing for collecting old British weapons -- I have an SMLE III* and a Webley MkVI (and yes, I just looked at the gun to check the model number) made in '16 and '15, respectively, and a bayonet for the rifle made in March '18 (by the same company that makes my razor blades). And now I have a repro sword from a previous king. Chillbro Baggins fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Aug 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 04:16
|
|
|
Does anyone here have any opinions about the book Lies My Teacher Told Me? I read that new paperback edition is coming out, and when I read it back in freshman year it was really the first time I can think of that I realized that a history book could be wrong. Kind of curious if it's worth revisiting and giving to my younger cousins and nieces/nephews.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 06:16
|
|
|
FAUXTON posted:they don't drop paratroopers on top of the enemy position like some video game Intentionally anyway. During D Day paratroopers got dropped all over the place compared to the plan, including garrisoned villages. Since you're a highly visible sitting duck coming down, this did not end well.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 10:40
|
|
|
Including this guy whose chute was caught on the church tower when his stick was accidentally dropped on a village. He survived by playing dead until he was taken prisoner a few hours later.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 11:37
|
|
|
Clarence posted:
Well, they seem to have hit peak Misery In Trenches mud season!
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 11:44
|
|
|
Clarence posted:
Could some of these be euphemisms for PTSD?
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 11:46
|
|
|
zoux posted:Perhaps they should increase their élan Everyone remembers elan but never cran Always the bridesmaid never the bride
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 11:49
|
|
|
Don Gato posted:Does anyone here have any opinions about the book Lies My Teacher Told Me? I read that new paperback edition is coming out, and when I read it back in freshman year it was really the first time I can think of that I realized that a history book could be wrong. Kind of curious if it's worth revisiting and giving to my younger cousins and nieces/nephews. It's a good book of historiography, and an important look at the way that history textbooks and and history teaching in American schools is influenced by politics and how it pushes a specific narrative of American exceptionalism, downplays racism and all that. That being said, I didn't really like the book. The book, or at least the edition I read, had some errors of its own, and sometimes seemed uncritical of its own sources. Also, the writing came across as smug and angry at the same time, and it felt like I'd imagine it would feel like being trapped in an elevator with Harold Zinn.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 12:32
|
|
|
Speaking of the Vietnam stuff from a few days ago, how frequently were the conscripts able to call artillery and air support? Was there a ton of training involved for that? I'm aware that artillery observation is a specialist job that usually comes with a bunch of attendant equipment, so presumably it was a lot more guesswork, but was it particularly regimented or was it just getting on a phone and estimating a spot you wanted erased from reality?
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 12:44
|
|
MikeCrotch posted:Everyone remembers elan but never cran Lets be honest, the latter sounds like dog food.
|
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 13:17
|
|
|
Slim Jim Pickens posted:Bombers with a half-load of bombs, and a half-load of paras. The bombs fall faster than the paras, they land having achieved maximum surprise and efficacy This is exactly how the Italians planned poo poo in the 1930's and 40's
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 13:43
|
|
|
Grenrow posted:19th century Indians thought so too. Sometimes they took imported 1796-pattern blades and stick tulwar hilts on them. that's ill as gently caress
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 13:54
|
|
|
HEY GUNS posted:that's ill as gently caress They also imported a lot of German backsword blades as well. Indians knew good swords and we're glad to buy a bunch of solid ones en masse and still make their own really nice ones on top of that.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 14:06
|
|
|
Fangz posted:Could some of these be euphemisms for PTSD? Shell shock or neurasthenia would have been a sub-category under "wounded" or "evacuated".
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 14:21
|
|
|
WoodrowSkillson posted:They also imported a lot of German backsword blades as well. Indians knew good swords and we're glad to buy a bunch of solid ones en masse and still make their own really nice ones on top of that. I know a lot of 19th century Sudanese swords have 15th or 16th century German blades. Edit: Just googled it and the sword forums seem to reckon that a lot of these were made by Sudanese smiths copying European makers' marks, so maybe this is wrong. Mr Enderby fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Aug 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 15:42
|
|
|
I saw another TIK video and it's quite funny to see the wehraboos come out in force for relatively uncontroversial opinions like "the soviets were actually quite strategically, operationally and tactically adept" This is pretty much wehraboo.png: 
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 17:45
|
|
|
Yes the fanatics who would refuse to retreat to actually beneficial ground is a better army unit.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 17:47
|
|
|
Not even a regular army unit, no he wants the committed Nazis
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 17:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 22:42 |
|
|
Tekopo posted:I saw another TIK video and it's quite funny to see the wehraboos come out in force for relatively uncontroversial opinions like "the soviets were actually quite strategically, operationally and tactically adept" How does a 2nd front affect the quality of the units?  (I know, wehraboo logic, but christ that's dumb)
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 17:59
|
|