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w/r/t the ACW and lovely combat medicine, don't forget that this is unfortunately right before germ theory became a thing, and so operations were some times carried out with dirty hands. Also, it was discovered that opiates seemed to calm soldiers to the point where their chances of healing themselves improved, so in one year alone the Union army ordered 11.000 morphine pills, 900 syringes, and nearly a ton of opium from suppliers. This unfortunately made their (very lovely) chief medic conflate cause and effect, so nothing was done to improve hygeine and a lot of soldiers became addicts.
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Jan 1, 2019 18:07
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Aircraft in general always seem a lot bigger than I picture in my head. Especially modern military craft, but even with early WW2 designs. I feel the same way about horses once I get up close. I'm on the taller side of average and those beasts still intimidate me.
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Jan 1, 2019 18:27
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Tias posted:w/r/t the ACW and lovely combat medicine, don't forget that this is unfortunately right before germ theory became a thing, and so operations were some times carried out with dirty hands. unfortunately, he received the best medical attention he could have, caught an infection, was wounded by them probing around in there trying and failing to find the bullet, and died horribly
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Jan 1, 2019 19:34
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HEY GUNS posted:when president james garfield was shot he probably would have recovered if nobody did loving anything except sewing him up and leaving the bullets in there They tried to find the bullet with high tech magnet technology but got false readings off the bedsprings.
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Jan 1, 2019 19:45
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Tunicate posted:Self-testing isn't unethical. After all, it's the only situation that guarantees truly informed consent(though making a pact for all the researchers to infect themselves, then skipping town the day before you get bitten is a dick move). A number of kids died from experimental polio vaccines, so Salk ended up testing them on his own kids.
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Jan 1, 2019 19:53
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They also only allowed Bell (yes the telephone guy) to use his Super High Tech Metal Detector on the right side of Garfield’s body because that’s where Medical Science determined the bullet had gone. (It was in his left.) The doctors basically created a new, worse wound in his right by digging around with their unwashed victorian hands, presumably right after coming back from an autopsy followed by a poop. One punctured his liver. With his fingers. Also his killer Guiteau actually did attempt the “I only shot him, the docs killed him!” defense. Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Jan 1, 2019 |
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Jan 1, 2019 19:53
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sullat posted:A number of kids died from experimental polio vaccines, so Salk ended up testing them on his own kids. I think using your own kids isn't exactly self testing....
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Jan 1, 2019 19:55
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Fangz posted:I think using your own kids isn't exactly self testing.... Nope, just bringing up a recent example of adventures in experimental ethics. Amazing what you could do before medical review boards...
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Jan 1, 2019 19:57
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Geisladisk posted:Nevermind the poo poo, you can go tens of hours without pooping, so barring unfortunate timing or digestive problems you should be fine even on a long flight. Early WW2 fighters only had an endurance of a couple of hours at most, so it wasn't really an issue. As the ranges increased fighters were fitted with 'relief tubes' which were simply small funnels on rubber hoses, so the pilot had to somehow work past their parachute, life jacket and flight suit or uniform and (while still flying the plane) pee into the funnel. The tubes would often ice up at high altitudes, leading to an unpleasant backing-up of piss into the cockpit. Some bombers and transports had relief tubes at the key crew positions, and/or a chemical toilet stowed somewhere in the back, but that was very much a token effort, was difficult and unpleasant to use (and empty back on the ground) and, being just a metal can with a folding lid tended to empty its contents all over the rear fuselage compartment during neg-G manoeuvers. Pilots (especially bomber crews) generally just made sure that they went into the air with empty bladders, not over-full stomachs and a breakfast of protein-rich food that wouldn't give them the shits. Meat and eggs was the classic. RAF Bomber Command crews had their breakfast before their mission briefing and could guess what the target was by the food they were served - bacon and a couple of eggs meant a relatively short trip to the Low Countries or western Germany, steak and three eggs meant they were going all the way to Berlin. C.M. Kruger posted:WRT castor oil engines this was just posted in the OSHA thread: And the castor oil is because it's a rotary. With the whole engine spinning away at 1200rpm it's impossible to have an oil sump, pump and circuit so the lube oil has to be mixed with the fuel, two-stroke style. Castor oil was the only thing which had the required lubricant qualities that would also not be degraded by mixing with gasoline (or that would actually mix and burn with the gas in the first place). The castor oil was burnt along with the fuel, so the exhaust was a steady stream of hydrocarbons and castor oil vapour. The stereotypical fighter pilot garb of goggles and a scarf were mostly so the poor sods could see where they were going (goggles to keep the exhaust out of their eyes, scarf to wipe the goggles). It was also why many pilots missed the earlier pusher-plan aircraft with the engine behind the cockpit. Platystemon posted:The seat isn’t high enough because none of the top Nazis had anatomically typical testicles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1DWJQkOJew With a rather ironic YouTube ID...
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Jan 1, 2019 20:01
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they made an scp out of the defenestration window. http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-4034
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Jan 1, 2019 20:33
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P-Mack posted:They tried to find the bullet with high tech magnet technology but got false readings off the bedsprings. Garfield was the one they ended up just jamming beef and whiskey up his rear end right?
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Jan 1, 2019 20:35
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The most 19th century enema.
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Jan 1, 2019 20:36
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Fun fact: the most likely origin of the term "cocktail" is that it originally referred to an old horse that had ginger shoved up its rear end to make its tail perk up when being sold. Around the turn of the 19th century they started using this as a slang term for a stimulating drink.
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Jan 1, 2019 20:49
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chitoryu12 posted:Fun fact: the most likely origin of the term "cocktail" is that it originally referred to an old horse that had ginger shoved up its rear end to make its tail perk up when being sold. Around the turn of the 19th century they started using this as a slang term for a stimulating drink. Nowadays they call it figging.
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Jan 1, 2019 21:00
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So why is a cockpit called a cockpit? Honest question, it's always puzzled me.
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Jan 1, 2019 21:19
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Tias posted:So why is a cockpit called a cockpit? Honest question, it's always puzzled me.
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Jan 1, 2019 21:32
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Tias posted:So why is a cockpit called a cockpit? Honest question, it's always puzzled me. Started as a naval term. Well technically started as literally a pit for cock fighting (as in roosters) and then came to be used for a certain ship compartment. I guess as a slang thing at first.
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Jan 1, 2019 21:33
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There's also a connection in there with how the coxswain on small things like rowing crew boats is the guy in charge of directing and steering the whole crew, and there was also certain sorts of small boats originally called "cocks" that might be stored on a larger ship. In modern rowing crew boats for racing, the coxswain also sits lower than the rowing dudes - a straight up coxswain's pit as it were.
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Jan 1, 2019 21:50
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The plane whose size most struck me was the Avro Vulcan. I know I shouldn't have been suprised that 'Bomber is big' but that sleek delta wing always made it feel more like a fighter to me and I'd somehow mentally pigeon-holed it into that sort of size. But of course it's absolutely enormous when you see one up close.
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Jan 1, 2019 21:58
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Started as a naval term. Well technically started as literally a pit for cock fighting (as in roosters) and then came to be used for a certain ship compartment. I guess as a slang thing at first. It has to do with the coxswain, which was a senior petty officer on an RN ship in the Age of Sail. 'Cockboat' was an archaic (medieval) term for a ship's boat, and in the same period a 'Swain' meant 'a young male servant in charge of...' (typically a knight's horse, but also a ship's boats). Thus the original term was 'Cockboatswain', then 'Cockswain' and then 'Coxswain', which came to be pronounced as 'coxsun'. At the same time there came the 'boatswain' ('bosun') who was originally superior to the coxswain as they were the senior rating aboard, responsible for organising and supervising the rest of the crew and seeing that the ship's hull, spars, rigging and fittings were properly maintained - everything except the guns (the responsibility of the Gunner) and the canvas (the responsibility of the Sailmaker). The bosun was responsible for 'the boat' (the term originated before the boat/ship distinction was linguistically settled) while the coxsun merely commanded the smaller 'cockboat'. During the Early Modern era the role and position of the coxswain changed, coming to define a senior petty officer who commanded the captain's boat (usually termed the Captain's Barge). From there the coxswain became something of a personal assistant to the captain and was trusted to lead small shore/boat parties and often instruct and supervise the midshipmen aboard. Captains would take 'their' coxswains with them from ship to ship over their (joint) careers if possible. During the 19th century the term lost its servile function and connotation, coming to mean the most senior petty officer aboard. Often the coxswain was the leading rating of the navigation department (while the bosun was now lead rating of the deck department), and would be at the ship's helm when going into action. This fell by the wayside on larger ships by the end of the 19th century but remained on smaller ships (gunboats, sloops, corvettes, submarines etc.) through WW2 and beyond. These days in the RN only uses 'Coxswain' to refer to ratings who are qualified to helm the various types of seaboat, motor whaler and picket boat. The Royal Marines call their landing craft pilots coxswains.The RCN still has the title for the senior NCO aboard. So what's all this got to do with aircraft? Well because the Coxswain's place was at the controls of a boat or ship, it became habit to refer to the place from which a vessel was steered as the 'cox's pit', which quickly became 'cockpit' because of the pronounciation and because on a ship's boat the coxswain stood up in the stern, surrounded by the gunwhales and transom on three sides, bearing a striking similiarity to a fighting cock in a raised cock-pit. Small sailing craft of the time often had flush decks with the steering tiller leading to a steering position which was surrounded on all four sides by a raised bulwark, thus looking even more like a cock-pit and the pilot position of an early aircraft. In the RN the Cockpit came to refer to the compartment containing the ship's tiller, even though most ships of any size were now actually steered from a wheel (connected to the tiller by ropes) several decks above. This compartment then became the favoured place to accomodate midshipmen. Then, as is the way of these things, the midshipmen were moved from the tiller compartment to an area in the rear of the main gundeck, but by then the term Cockpit had come to mean 'the midshipmen berth', so they took the term with them, as it were. Thus on an RN sailing ship the Cockpit could be almost anywhere, had nothing to do with the tiller, the controls or the coxswain. Just as, by the same period, the Gunroom no longer stored any guns, just junior officers. By the mid-18th century the actual 'cockpit' (the tiller compartment) was usually where the surgeon was stationed in battle as it was safely below the waterline. In civilian usage, especially on smaller rowing, sailing and fishing vessels, the link between 'cockpit' and 'the place where the controls are' was much firmer and indeed remains to the present day for sailing dinghys and yachts. So when aircraft first came about the obvious term for the small, high-sided, open-topped compartment with all the controls was cockpit. Deptfordx posted:The plane whose size most struck me was the Avro Vulcan. I know I shouldn't have been suprised that 'Bomber is big' but that sleek delta wing always made it feel more like a fighter to me and I'd somehow mentally pigeon-holed it into that sort of size. But of course it's absolutely enormous when you see one up close. Walking under the Vulcan at Duxford is like a real-world version of the opening scene of Star Wars Ep:4 when the little blockade runner zooms past and then the Star Destroyer rolls over the camera and goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on and gets wider, and wider, and wider, and wider...
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Jan 1, 2019 22:26
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Why is the poopdeck called the poopdeck?
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Jan 1, 2019 22:35
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Why is the poopdeck called the poopdeck? Feom the French "la poupe", meaning "the stern" according to wikipedia.
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Jan 1, 2019 22:57
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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BalloonFish posted:
 I saw the one at the RAF museum at Hendon, all the others were neatly roped off, but you could stroll around underneath the Vulcan and this was the thing that really struck me.
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Jan 1, 2019 23:13
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lol
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Jan 1, 2019 23:28
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Why is the poopdeck called the poopdeck? Navies looked at their cockpits and seamen and thought “heheheh, nice”
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Jan 1, 2019 23:45
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Chesterton's "Lepanto" is a dramatic, rousing poem, aside from the bit about "slaughter-painted poop."Chillbro Baggins posted:Feom the French "la poupe", meaning "the stern" according to wikipedia. Makes sense! There's a constellation called Puppis, the stern of the Argo. (Along with Carina the Keel and Vela the Sail, they were all split from a pointlessly huge constellation originally called Argo Navis.)
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Jan 2, 2019 01:15
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chitoryu12 posted:Fun fact: the most likely origin of the term "cocktail" is that it originally referred to an old horse that had ginger shoved up its rear end to make its tail perk up when being sold. Around the turn of the 19th century they started using this as a slang term for a stimulating drink. I'm not going to lie. That sounds refreshing
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Jan 2, 2019 03:38
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Looking at photos of the M36 tank destroyer it has an M2 browning mounted on a pintle on the back of the turret. On some photos a gunner is standing on the engine deck to operate the machine gun, but it seems like there's no way you can fire the machine gun while inside the vehicle, unless you're firing to the rear. What gives? Is the idea that you drive with the turret pointing backwards, and use the machine gun to defend against attacks from the front? That it's intended for the anti-aircraft role and was never supposed to fire upon ground targets in combat? Americans thinking climbing out of the turret to operate the machine gun is good design?
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Jan 2, 2019 03:40
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It's that anti-aircraft thing. It was fairly common for M36s to have that .50 cal moved to the front of the turret or a .30 cal MG to be mounted there for additional anti-personnel firepower, especially once it became clear MGs were more useful for that than for fending off aircraft. The M36B1 also retained the Sherman's bow MG for defensive purposes. EDIT: Though it does have to be admitted that the US military was very much inclined to slap extra M2s onto any combat vehicle that held still for more than a minute. In their defense, a poorly positioned .50 cal was unlikely to make a vehicle worse at Nazi killing, and while the possible advantage towards that purpose was slight, it was infinitely greater than the advantage of an M2 sitting in a factory, unused. Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Jan 2, 2019 04:55
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It's supposed to be AA only. You'll see Shermans with the same rear-mounted M2 that can only be operated while standing on the engine deck. As you can imagine, this was an issue, and many crews moved their AA MG so it could be fired while standing in the turret. Since the M36s didn't have a roof they couldn't really do the same thing.
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Jan 2, 2019 05:44
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What was the official position on crews modifying their vehicles, and what was the position in the field (if different)?
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Jan 2, 2019 07:52
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GotLag posted:What was the official position on crews modifying their vehicles, and what was the position in the field (if different)? "please avoid covering your Sherman in concrete, it will erase any advantage the suspension system provides, cause excess fuel consumption, make you slow as hell, and it makes you look like you're driving a marshmallow" "gently caress that, those pencilpushing hosers in Detroit ain't the ones getting shot at" 
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Jan 2, 2019 09:27
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What was the official Soviet position on bedspring "armour" on T-34s? Was it "well it won't do poo poo but it won't slow the tank down and it makes them feel better so who cares?" Edit: from some quick searching it seems like that was an official kit. I was sure I'd seen a picture of a field-expedient version though GotLag fucked around with this message at 10:04 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Jan 2, 2019 10:01
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GotLag posted:What was the official Soviet position on bedspring "armour" on T-34s? Was it "well it won't do poo poo but it won't slow the tank down and it makes them feel better so who cares?" Probably a response to the Panzerfaust. The air gap interferes with the shaped charge.
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Jan 2, 2019 10:13
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FAUXTON posted:Probably a response to the Panzerfaust. The air gap interferes with the shaped charge. That only works if the bedsprings are substantial enough to tigger the charge. Were they?
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Jan 2, 2019 10:20
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On that topic, Russian WWII sources seem convinced that open topped vehicles rendered Panzerfausts ineffective, to the extent that supposedly leaving hatches open on T34s was advised for tanks going into urban combat. How much truth is there in this? Is it just soldier superstition?
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Jan 2, 2019 10:23
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Platystemon posted:That only works if the bedsprings are substantial enough to tigger the charge. Iirc they weren't literally bedsprings but proper metal slatting/gridding that were in fact substantial enough.
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Jan 2, 2019 10:24
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Allied trials found spaced armour to be generally pretty ineffective vs Panzerfausts, if I recall. I think I have read that modern slat armour operates on the principle of loving up the impact fuse on RPGs and so causing them to fail to detonate. Shape charges were poorly understood at the time though, so it's possible that during the war inconsistencies in Panzerfaust performance led people to believe the idea worked. I don't think the Soviets used the idea postwar, so I guess they also eventually realised it was a bad idea.
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Jan 2, 2019 10:35
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Someone light the Ensign Signal. Eh, gently caress it, I'll do it: the Panther was a Good Tank.
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Jan 2, 2019 10:43
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Fangz posted:On that topic, Russian WWII sources seem convinced that open topped vehicles rendered Panzerfausts ineffective, to the extent that supposedly leaving hatches open on T34s was advised for tanks going into urban combat. How much truth is there in this? Is it just soldier superstition? I mean, if I know my tank is about to be hit by a Panzerfaust, I’d want the hatches open so I could bail out faster. Maybe it also keeps the pressure down a little? I wouldn’t count on a significant effect there. Either way, it’s going to penetrate and spray molten copper around the interior of the vehicle. Not good.
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Jan 2, 2019 10:47
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