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If you have a chance to visit the Central Air Force Museum in Moscow, you might want to do it now before the aircraft are cut up to make amusement park rides. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/05/historic-aircraft-will-destroyed-move-putins-military-disneyland/
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Jan 6, 2019 19:33
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sullat posted:It's a defensive thing, like the USSR adopting a different rail gauge than Germany. The reason for the different gauge is because one of the czars hired an American engineer from some southern state to build the first railroad in Russia.
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Jan 6, 2019 20:53
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Hogge Wild posted:The reason for the different gauge is because one of the czars hired an American engineer from some southern state to build the first railroad in Russia.
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Jan 6, 2019 20:57
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HEY GUNS posted:and those states already had different gauges from the northern states yeah, it was chance and inertia like you said earlier
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Jan 6, 2019 21:03
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C.M. Kruger posted:If you have a chance to visit the Central Air Force Museum in Moscow, you might want to do it now before the aircraft are cut up to make amusement park rides. Morally, I don’t think Patriot Park is good. But drat if I wouldn’t visit if we had one here. Surely it’s something the MAGAs would get behind.
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Jan 6, 2019 21:08
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Morally, I don’t think Patriot Park is good. But drat if I wouldn’t visit if we had one here. Surely it’s something the MAGAs would get behind. I've been to it and it's  , however quite a few of the signs are wrong and that's just laughable. It does suck what happening to Monino though.
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Jan 6, 2019 21:52
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Hogge Wild posted:yeah, it was chance and inertia like you said earlier
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Jan 6, 2019 22:07
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Marxist-Jezzinist posted:I hate our too-safe plugs Plug Crime Island
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Jan 6, 2019 22:58
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Morally, I don’t think Patriot Park is good. But drat if I wouldn’t visit if we had one here. Surely it’s something the MAGAs would get behind. To my great surprise there apparently aren't any Confederacy/White Power theme parks in the US, though Georgia does have the Stone Mountain Confederate-KKK memorial.
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Jan 7, 2019 01:00
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C.M. Kruger posted:To my great surprise there apparently aren't any Confederacy/White Power theme parks in the US, though Georgia does have the Stone Mountain Confederate-KKK memorial. There was that one park that had confederate generals riding dinosaurs, which is a concept just crazy enough that I want to see Robert E Lee and Ulysses S Grant dueling each other while riding tyrannosaurus in a movie.
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Jan 7, 2019 01:09
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Don Gato posted:There was that one park that had confederate generals riding dinosaurs, which is a concept just crazy enough that I want to see Robert E Lee and Ulysses S Grant dueling each other while riding tyrannosaurus in a movie.
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Jan 7, 2019 01:12
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i heard the claim that t-rexes mostly predated by sorta landing on prey with their bellies and holding them with their stumpy-arms while they murdered them with their mouth i like how inelegant that hypothesis is. it seems more realistic than the thing running around having comic book adventures anyway r e lee would have a heart attack (unless harry turtledove wrote in some south africans to get him nitroglycerin pills) and grant would be sober as long as his wife was around thats my prediction book it
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Jan 7, 2019 01:43
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oystertoadfish posted:i heard the claim that t-rexes mostly predated by sorta landing on prey with their bellies and holding them with their stumpy-arms while they murdered them with their mouth Like a decade or so ago, T-Rex was a scavenger kind of animal that just waits 'till smaller animals kill something then barges in and scares them off to eat the thing for himself, before that he was an apex predator. Fact of the matter is, I think it's pretty drat hard to make anything but somewhat educated guesses based mostly on incomplete fossilized skeletons.
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Jan 7, 2019 01:46
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Randarkman posted:Like a decade or so ago, T-Rex was a scavenger kind of animal that just waits 'till smaller animals kill something then barges in and scares them off to eat the thing for himself, before that he was an apex predator. Fact of the matter is, I think it's pretty drat hard to make anything but somewhat educated guesses based mostly on incomplete fossilized skeletons. 
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Jan 7, 2019 02:14
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oystertoadfish posted:i heard the claim that t-rexes mostly predated by sorta landing on prey with their bellies and holding them with their stumpy-arms while they murdered them with their mouth Anyone who hasn't seen Treeosaur should remedy that immediately 
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Jan 7, 2019 02:20
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Paleo-orthodentist seems like a dangerous gig
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Jan 7, 2019 02:21
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Tunicate posted:Anyone who hasn't seen Treeosaur should remedy that immediately edit ok thanks for the link! here's a quote from the site quote:The way in which ground vibrations travel through a tree really blew me away; I was astounded by the results! The expense and effort of this experiment was worth every penny and every bead of sweat. and here's a picture  click if you like oystertoadfish fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Jan 7, 2019 |
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Jan 7, 2019 02:34
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Hogge Wild posted:The reason for the different gauge is because one of the czars hired an American engineer from some southern state to build the first railroad in Russia. HEY GUNS posted:going to a large university and being tangentially associated with my church's parish council (and listening to my sister talk about the library where she works) have taught me a lot of things about how human organizations work: it's mostly bullshit Australia has three major rail gauges in use, for both of the above reasons (and more). This is despite the colonies initially agreeing in principle to use standard gauge (1435 mm) before anyone started building anything, in 1853. The chief engineer of the first line to start construction (in Victoria) was Irish, and insisted on Irish broad gauge (1600 mm), and his change was approved by London. Said engineer then left for unrelated reasons, and his (Scottish) replacement preferred returning to standard gauge as originally planned. The Victorian government asked their three railway companies for comment and sent messages to the other colonies to apologise for the confusion and encourage them to continue with their standard gauge plans. Meanwhile one of the companies was asking the Victorian government for a definitive answer because they were about to send off their order for rolling stock and locomotives via sailing ship (the telegraph connection being two decades away from completion, an interesting story in itself) and needed to know now which gauge would be used. Only one of the other companies in Victoria had responded to tell the government what they wanted, and they strongly preferred 1600 mm. In 1854 Victoria tells the other colonies that actually they're going for broad gauge now, sorry for the confusion. New South Wales is sick of this poo poo and in 1855 just starts building standard gauge like they'd all originally agreed on. In 1856 South Australia starts building its first line using broad gauge, as it was the first one used and Victoria's network was closer than New South Wales'. Meanwhile Queensland ignores all of the above and in 1865 starts building its narrow gauge (1067 mm) network. They actually have good reason for this: their network has a much greater distance to cover, narrow gauge track is cheaper, and they're not as wealthy as the more populous Victoria and New South Wales. Western Australia follows suit in 1879 for the same reasons. Everyone recognises it's a bit farcical but hey it doesn't really matter because all the passengers and freight will have to be taken off the trains where the networks meet at the borders for immigration and customs controls, as the colonies are separate countries and all have their own border controls. In 1901 Federation strikes and Australia is now a single, unified country. Everybody still has to change trains at state borders and all cargoes still have to be transshipped. After numerous government committees and their reports, in the 1960s work begins to convert parts of the state networks to standard gauge, to form a national network. This allows the Indian Pacific to run directly from Sydney to Perth for the first time in 1970. Although this passes through South Australia, there is no connection to Adelaide until 1983. The Melbourne-Adelaide corridor is converted in 1995. Brisbane is the last state capital to be connected to the standard gauge network, in 1997. Darwin is connected to the rest of Australia by a newly-laid standard gauge route joining it to the South Australian network, opened in 2004. Note that even today, with the exceptions of Tasmania (an island) and the Australian Capital Territory (consisting only of Canberra and its immediate surrounds), every state and territory has more than one track gauge still in use. Sorry, this post turned out longer than I expected.
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Jan 7, 2019 03:57
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Hogge Wild posted:The reason for the different gauge is because one of the czars hired an American engineer from some southern state to build the first railroad in Russia. Nice, so some random 19th century Dixieland engineer was instrumental in helping win the Second World War.
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Jan 7, 2019 04:36
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The South itself switched to nearly standard gauge in a day and a half in May of 1886.
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Jan 7, 2019 04:46
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Randarkman posted:Like a decade or so ago, T-Rex was a scavenger kind of animal that just waits 'till smaller animals kill something then barges in and scares them off to eat the thing for himself, before that he was an apex predator. Fact of the matter is, I think it's pretty drat hard to make anything but somewhat educated guesses based mostly on incomplete fossilized skeletons. Jack Horner, the principal proponent of the scavenger hypothesis, has since admitted he was more or less trolling the entire time. It's hard to know things for sure, but the guesses we make can be pretty highly educated. For instance, while basically all modern carnivores will happily scavenge where available, the only specialized scavengers are birds that use thermals to travel great distances with minimal energy expenditure. Energy constraints prevent land-bound animals from adopting the same strategy—carcasses are thin enough on the ground that covering the distance between them costs more than you get back from eating them. In order to posit a multi-ton specialized land-based scavenger, you need to posit major changes in its environment or biology, and that in turn requires serious evidence. I don't think the scavenger hypothesis ever got much traction in the paleontology community, but because Jack Horner is a major public figure (at least as far as paleontologists go—he's the basis for Dr. Grant), it was presented as if it had. We have strong ichnofossil evidence of T. rex (this is the proper way to write the name, btw) actively hunting large herbivores in the form of healed bite marks on their skeletons. This pretty conclusively demonstrates they were alive at the time of the attack since, y'know, they survived to heal afterward.
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Jan 7, 2019 04:53
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Hogge Wild posted:The reason for the different gauge is because one of the czars hired an American engineer from some southern state to build the first railroad in Russia. Northern state. George Washington Whistler, from Massachussets, who was also the husband of the famous sitting lady (He was the father of James Whistler). He suggested the gauge because it was cheaper to build.
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Jan 7, 2019 04:54
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GotLag posted:Sorry, this post turned out longer than I expected. Don't be, it's great. I love hearing about administrative trainwrecks.
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Jan 7, 2019 05:24
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FrangibleCover posted:I don't know the answer but I think I know the question: Try looking into gun convergence patterns, since they'll be set at average engagement distances to produce the greatest possible chance of hitting. Yeah, fighter guns were very far apart in the wings, so the distance where they aimed them to cross is your answer. (Inside that distance or out to convergence distance*2 would probably be acceptable if you had to, given that the enemy fighter is about the same size as yours, you may not hit him when straight and level, but he's flying through a wall of lead if he tries to shake you.) A cursory Googling says 300 yards (which, at that low of a number, are functionally equivalent to meters.) Somebody else can do the trigonometry and confirm my suspicion that a WWII fighter at 300 yards is "just big/visible enough to actually aim at", but I have a feeling that with unmagnified gunsights, a 37-foot-wide (around 12m) target (as the Spitfire and Mustang were, I didn't look up the dimensions of the Fw 190 but IIRC it was the same or a bit smaller*) is a dark speck in the sky at ranges beyond that. Randarkman posted:Like a decade or so ago, T-Rex was a scavenger kind of animal that just waits 'till smaller animals kill something then barges in and scares them off to eat the thing for himself, before that he was an apex predator Not to say that they didn't, but they killed when they had to. Cf. modern lions -- they'll steal a kill from hyenas when they can, but they do their own hunting when they can't steal from smaller predators. Dammit, beaten on the dinosaur thing. *edit: The Fw 190 was indeed smaller than its allied counterparts,, but again, not enough to matter at the ranges in question-- 34'5" wingspan as opposed to the Spitfire's 36'10". If your guns were dialed in and you fired when it was [x] wide in your reticle, you'd hit either one. Chillbro Baggins fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Jan 7, 2019 |
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Jan 7, 2019 05:33
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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Milo and POTUS posted:Paleo-orthodentist seems like a dangerous gig Hippos let carp clean their mouths and teeth apparently. But yeah, that's a hippo skull. It would not look like a hippo if you draped it in skin. This is getting wildly off topic.
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Jan 7, 2019 07:56
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To kinda get it back toward on-topic, white dudes from various European empires hunted hippos, or canoed through hippo-infested rivers. Yay, colonialis-- "bit off his head and shoulders" comes up rather often in the hippo literature. Sure, they're gentle herbivorous beasts, if a bit unsanitary. Until you make them angry and then they do to you what the T. rex did to the lawyer in the OG Jurassic Park movie.
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Jan 7, 2019 08:18
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:
2. hitler had a photo of himself in his bathroom 3. my last apartment had that tub/tile setup but in pink
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Jan 7, 2019 09:08
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HEY GUNS posted:going to a large university and being tangentially associated with my church's parish council (and listening to my sister talk about the library where she works) have taught me a lot of things about how human organizations work: it's mostly bullshit
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Jan 7, 2019 09:40
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As anyone with the misfortune to have stepped on a British plug knows they were originally developed in the 40s as an improvised area denial weapon before being repurposed in the cash strapped era that followed. Large parts of the British countryside are to this day inaccessible and fenced off due to indiscriminate scattering of the devices due to feared German invasion.
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Jan 7, 2019 13:19
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There are at least three good names for such implements, “caltrops”, “dragon’s teeth”, and “Czech hedgehogs”. Fun fact: LEGO bricks were developed shortly after the war to deter German invasion. The Christiansen’s grandchildren started playing with them, and the rest is history. Platystemon fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Jan 7, 2019 |
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Jan 7, 2019 13:24
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C.M. Kruger posted:If you have a chance to visit the Central Air Force Museum in Moscow, you might want to do it now before the aircraft are cut up to make amusement park rides. Its already a dump. Seriously its bad. The aircraft are looted to poo poo and a lot of the older, really cool stuff, like the MiG-9, La-15, Yak-17 and Ya-23 are almost falling apart.
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Jan 7, 2019 13:39
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Cessna posted:Also Marine Recon. MARSOC, however, does amazing things with quite a limited budget of both funds, gear and manpower.
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Jan 7, 2019 13:44
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1. plunder rules 2. hitler had a photo of himself in his bathroom 3. my last apartment had that tub/tile setup but in pink [/quote] The photo thing really through me. That seems odd even for Hitler.
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Jan 7, 2019 14:37
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:
Rub-a-dub-dub. A picture of the head Nazi in a tub...
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Jan 7, 2019 15:24
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SlothfulCobra posted:Don't be, it's great. I love hearing about administrative trainwrecks. Same. EvilMerlin posted:MARSOC, however, does amazing things with quite a limited budget of both funds, gear and manpower. That's the USMC mantra.
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Jan 7, 2019 15:49
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Cessna posted:Same. https://www.statista.com/statistics/239290/budget-of-the-us-navy-and-the-us-marine-corps/ Marines make do with more moneys than all but 12 countries entire armed forces ContinuityNewTimes fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Jan 7, 2019 |
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Jan 7, 2019 15:59
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Marxist-Jezzinist posted:Marines make do with a limited budget of $40bn, wow thrifty! It's all relative. Compared to the other US armed services, the USMC is quite frugal. And it also depends on where you are in the USMC. The Air Wing gets expensive fighter planes, the FMF uses stuff the US Army got rid of in a yard sale after Vietnam.
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Jan 7, 2019 16:07
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My number was way off by like 10+ billion lol sorry that was the budget ten years ago. You caught me wrangling that post into something less terrible ContinuityNewTimes fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Jan 7, 2019 |
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Jan 7, 2019 16:09
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Schadenboner posted:E for content: is there any data available for how average engagement distance changed for aircraft through WW2? Like, how far were fighters and bombers apart in the Battle of Britain versus the (day) air war over Germany later on? The general answer is "too far". RAF regulations prior to the Battle of Britain mandated harmonizing guns at some ridiculous distance like 1000 yards; pilots pretty quickly started moving it to more like 250-300 yards, and even that is a LONG way away. You were WAY more likely to shoot something down if you were within 200 yards, especially with rifle caliber machine guns. Aerial gunnery is very hard. It is also very hard to maneuver an airplane to within 200 yards of a target. Basically, shooting stuff down is hard. In any case, engagement distances didn't change much during the war...I'd guess average was 500 yards or so. Some guns were designed to standoff bombers defensive guns (the Mk103 for instance) but that was never a terribly effective approach. One of the things you see consistently from the most successful pilots is that they tended to engage at very, very close range. Krupinski was particularly noted for this...he lost a bunch of planes to debris from a target that exploded right in front of him....he tried to be within 100 yards before he took a shot. He in turn was the one who taught Hartmann to get that close. Allied aces stood off a bit more, as their guns were a bit better suited for shooting at distance, but Gabreski and Malan were both advocates of 200 yard harmonization for wing guns. If you're looking for an actual dataset your best bet is probably gun camera analyses, although these are all biased towards successful engagements and are thus are probably a lot closer than whatever was average. Still, there are a lot of clips of RAF pilots dumping their entire magazines on bombers from thousand yards away....
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Jan 7, 2019 16:14
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Marxist-Jezzinist posted:My number was way off by like 10+ billion lol sorry that was the budget ten years ago. It's still a valid observation. Like I said, it's all relative. A big chunk of the money goes to the Air Wing (the navy's army's air force). The rest of the USMC gets by with less than their army equivalents. They deliberately run things on the cheap (again, comparatively) to help reduce the calls to get rid of the USMC and make it part of the army.
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Jan 7, 2019 16:26
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