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bewbies posted:That said another second-order effect of Russian attack aviation was them forcing the German army to maintain a higher density of anti-aircraft shooters than any army we had seen before, or are likely to ever see. They had to spend a whole lot of boys and bullets worrying about the air threat, and that is significant. Curious about this - i know German SPAAGs were a thing but I didn't think they had a ton of them? Or is this fixed AA which sounds like it would be v vulnerable on the strategic defence.
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Apr 6, 2019 23:20
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Apr 7, 2019 00:43
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Instead of a few big bombs, the Soviets ended up equipping IL-2s with small shaped charge bombs weighting only 2.5 Kg each. They could carry like 200 of these, and so when they dropped them on a target it had the effect of a cluster bomb. Probably wouldn't totally destroy a tank, but it could cause a lot of damage, and of course destroy any trucks or unarmoured vehicles. What you do with those is find a supply convoy and fly down it spamming bomblets the whole time. This is really rough on trucks, you can hit dozens in one pass. Now a Panzer regiment is out of spare parts, fuel, and ammo. That's worth the whole four ship IL2 element you sent after it.
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Apr 7, 2019 01:23
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Sticks of small bombs may have been ineffective against tanks and somewhat (to one degree or another) against other military vehicles. But I'd bet they were depressingly effective against the horses the Nazis depended on. Poor horsies. 
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Apr 7, 2019 01:35
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Minto Took posted:It was squash courts under the old football stadium. I used to work around there. There's also a plaque marking the spot in a forest preserve outside of Chicago where the remains of CP1 are buried It is regularly defaced
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Apr 7, 2019 03:10
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Neophyte posted:Sticks of small bombs may have been ineffective against tanks and somewhat (to one degree or another) against other military vehicles. But I'd bet they were depressingly effective against the horses the Nazis depended on. A 2.5kg shaped charge to the engine deck is going to turn a tank into a pillbox pretty effectively.
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Apr 7, 2019 03:27
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I have a question for everyone here. Has your interest/study of military history impacted how you view war and/or violence? I ask because I feel it's profoundly changed how I view war and I wonder if others have had the same experience. I went from being what I would describe as a fairly hawkish teenager to being close to being a pacifist. Wouldn't say I'm all the way there, I still think it's morally just to punch fascists for instance, but I now have pretty strong feelings about most violence. That early interest was more of a "tanks are cool" type thing (Tanks are still cool), which drew me into more academic type stuff. I think being exposed to the personal histories and broader social topics surrounding military history made a lot of things really hit home to me as I grew older. What I find strange sometimes is that I still find all the same stuff cool that I did as a teenager, but it's mixed up in adult me hating war and violence.
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Apr 7, 2019 03:59
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Solaris 2.0 posted:When the tanks did get hit, the crew (if green) would panic and abandon them. This bit I don't understand. I have 0 military experience, but if I'm currently being machinegunned then inside a tank seems like an excellent place to be.
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Apr 7, 2019 04:00
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The main morale hit is from feeling helpless. There isn't much a tank can do vs a plane after all and it really clashes against the whole 'titan of the battlefield' mentality of going into battle wrapped in armor.
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Apr 7, 2019 04:12
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Lemony posted:I have a question for everyone here. Has your interest/study of military history impacted how you view war and/or violence? I’m not a historian or anything close but I find military tech to be fascinating since it’s usually bleeding edge. It’s the most direct engineering response to a specific problem and that’s cool as hell. Same reason I love space flight. It was tough to reconcile the actual human cost of the people inside the contraptions and what they had to go through because my grandfather died before he would tell me about what he went through. He was a b-17 gunner that was shot down and spent a bit over a year in a pow camp. I barely remember when gw1 broke out and i never had a direct connection to the kind of violence a war can bring until the gwot where i lost a few friends that signed up. The more I learn about the personal loss either directly or through reading the more and more pacifist I get because it really does gently caress people up in every conceivable way. i still think tech is cool as hell tho.
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Apr 7, 2019 04:16
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The Lone Badger posted:This bit I don't understand. I have 0 military experience, but if I'm currently being machinegunned then inside a tank seems like an excellent place to be. I would imagine it’s loving terrifying to be racked with canon fire even if you are in a vehicle that is largely (but not totally) impervious to it. A tank sticks out like a sore thumb and if a fighter bomber completes multiple strafing passes on it, especially if the crew is green, yea I can see why they would eventually panic and bail for the woods on the side of the road.
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Apr 7, 2019 04:20
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Wasn't there something about it being really loving loud to get hit plus spalling? Might be just intolerable inside.
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Apr 7, 2019 08:37
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This is pretty loving cool. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/06/casimir-pulaski-polish-general-woman-intersex quote:Researchers believe a famed Polish general who fought in the American Revolutionary war may have been a woman or possibly intersex. The source link https://asunow.asu.edu/20190405-discoveries-asu-bioarchaeologist-uncovers-200-year-old-mystery quote:“America’s Hidden Stories: The General Was Female?” will air on the Smithsonian Channel at 8 and 11 p.m. Monday, April 8, and at 1 p.m. Tuesday, April 9.
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Apr 7, 2019 08:52
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he's still male. he's just a man who happens to have had a woman's body, at least partially (he could grow a small moustache)
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Apr 7, 2019 09:17
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And a very dashing-looking man at that
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Apr 7, 2019 10:20
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so how do you teach americans how to cav if you can't speak english
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Apr 7, 2019 10:24
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HEY GUNS posted:so how do you teach americans how to cav if you can't speak english Any american officer worth anything spoke french, and so did Pulaski.
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Apr 7, 2019 10:44
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My one of my granddad's few anecdotes about the war was that he always wanted to be a tanker. Until he saw one get hit and brew up in front of him. Tanks are big and conspicuous and if you are in one and being shot at there's good odds that any second a big one is on the way to end you. If you are running around on the ground then lots of the time you have the option to find a way not to be shot at.
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Apr 7, 2019 10:49
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HEY GUNS posted:so how do you teach americans how to cav if you can't speak english Speak really slowly with gestures
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Apr 7, 2019 10:49
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Fangz posted:Speak really slowly with gestures *gets shot* 
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Apr 7, 2019 10:51
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Well you CAN bomb tanks if you throw enough of them at it. Comstar fucked around with this message at 11:27 on Apr 7, 2019 |
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Apr 7, 2019 10:51
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Vahakyla posted:Any american officer worth anything spoke french, and so did Pulaski. i honestly forgot about eastern european nobles and french, thx
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Apr 7, 2019 10:54
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Alchenar posted:My one of my granddad's few anecdotes about the war was that he always wanted to be a tanker. Until he saw one get hit and brew up in front of him. Yeah but tanks also have a dramatically lower chance of getting cut up by shrapnel from a mortar shooting vaguely in your direction, which is how the majority of infantry died.
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Apr 7, 2019 10:58
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Now I wonder the opposite question to before. If you have to choose to be in *combat* in WWII, what branch would you pick? Like assuming you can't just pick a nice desk job a thousand miles away from the action, or guard an airfield miles away from everything, you have to shoot something.
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Apr 7, 2019 11:05
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As I mentioned upstream, I'm starting a podcast here in Denmark with the theme of "insane stories from milhist", basically. Current subjects for the first season are: Gurkha medal recipients, Sir Garnet Wolseleys career, Baron Von Ungern-Sternberg shaman kingdom bogaloo, and the many gos at the Isonzo Front - but for these weighty (except maybe Wolsely and the gurkhas) subjects I feel like I'd need some practice first. I think I'd like to start with some lighter stuff, and so I'm asking the thread for suggestions: Which times in the history of warfare did some truly entertaining (to the milhist fan anyway) happen often enough for it to be remarked upon in sources?
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Apr 7, 2019 11:07
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Tias posted:As I mentioned upstream, I'm starting a podcast here in Denmark with the theme of "insane stories from milhist", basically. I nominate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandra_Samusenko Female guards tank commander Defeated 3 Tiger tanks in one battle in a 76mm T34 Picked up an American POW to join her tank crew Killed a month before the end of the war Fangz fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Apr 7, 2019 |
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Apr 7, 2019 11:10
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Fangz posted:Now I wonder the opposite question to before. If you have to choose to be in *combat* in WWII, what branch would you pick? Like assuming you can't just pick a nice desk job a thousand miles away from the action, or guard an airfield miles away from everything, you have to shoot something. British AA gunner during the Battle of Britain. German heavy AA gunner near some industrial center far, far away from the front. Both have an approximately zero percent chance of getting killed or injured.
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Apr 7, 2019 11:18
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Geisladisk posted:British AA gunner during the Battle of Britain. German heavy AA gunner near some industrial center far, far away from the front. In the latter case wouldn't you have a pretty high chance of ending up in some no retreat fortress city situation?
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Apr 7, 2019 11:26
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Fangz posted:In the latter case wouldn't you have a pretty high chance of ending up in some no retreat fortress city situation? Sure, but by that point I've fulfilled the criteria of having shot at something during combat in WW2, and vanish in a puff of hypothetical smoke.
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Apr 7, 2019 11:32
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feedmegin posted:Curious about this - i know German SPAAGs were a thing but I didn't think they had a ton of them? Or is this fixed AA which sounds like it would be v vulnerable on the strategic defence. Iirc the Germans built less than 500 SPAAG's over the war, primarily on Pz4 chassis that came in for repair, in the last 2 years of the war. They had thousands of half-tracks with AA guns mounted, though.
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Apr 7, 2019 11:44
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Fangz posted:Now I wonder the opposite question to before. If you have to choose to be in *combat* in WWII, what branch would you pick? Like assuming you can't just pick a nice desk job a thousand miles away from the action, or guard an airfield miles away from everything, you have to shoot something. Late-war reconnaissance pilot. The enemy has no meaningful way to shoot you down and you're just taking photos.
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Apr 7, 2019 11:51
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Fangz posted:I nominate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandra_Samusenko Thanks! Slightly depressing for a first episode, though, I think.
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Apr 7, 2019 11:59
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Not entirely lighter stuff but you might find Charles Upham intteresting. He's one of only three people to win the VC twice, and the only one to win it twice for combat actions (the other two won theirs for being medics working in combat). He was later captured and demonstrated a keen enthusiasm for escape attempts:quote:One attempt to escape occurred when a group of POWs were being transported in open trucks through Italy. Upham jumped from the truck at a bend and managed to get 400 yards (370 m) away before being recaptured. He had broken an ankle in jumping from the moving truck. He re-equipped after Colditz was liberated by US troops and attempted to rejoin the fight but was sent back to New Zealand, where his community raised a large sum of money to buy him a farm, but he declined the money and donated it to a scholarship fund. He spent the rest of his life farming and continuing to hate Germans.
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Apr 7, 2019 12:26
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HEY GUNS posted:so how do you teach americans how to cav if you can't speak english Contrarily how can you teach cav if you're from Bad Cav Island?
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Apr 7, 2019 12:59
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feedmegin posted:Curious about this - i know German SPAAGs were a thing but I didn't think they had a ton of them? Or is this fixed AA which sounds like it would be v vulnerable on the strategic defence. They weren't big on SPAAGs, their main thing was towed 20mm or 37mm guns. They made jillions of them and they were everywhere. There's no way to prove this but I'd bet the Flak 30/38 shot down more planes than any other system in history.
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Apr 7, 2019 13:13
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Don Gato posted:Late-war reconnaissance pilot. The enemy has no meaningful way to shoot you down and you're just taking photos. Alright pilot, your Fw 189 is over ---> there, go photo some Soviets 
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Apr 7, 2019 13:15
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Dance Officer posted:Iirc the Germans built less than 500 SPAAG's over the war, primarily on Pz4 chassis that came in for repair, in the last 2 years of the war. A halftrack with an AA gun mounted is a SPAAG
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Apr 7, 2019 13:23
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I've always liked military history and thought tanks were pretty cool. As an adult, I detest war and find it gross, I do have internal conflict between enjoying this subject and realizing it's really dark a lot of the time.
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Apr 7, 2019 13:24
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feedmegin posted:Alright pilot, your Fw 189 is over ---> there, go photo some Soviets Get in the plane and fly West On that topic, if you wanted to defect in an aircraft, how do you best communicate that intention? Can you get on an allied frequency in a German plane? Fangz fucked around with this message at 13:31 on Apr 7, 2019 |
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Apr 7, 2019 13:29
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Fangz posted:Speak really slowly with gestures Swords are really great at convoying all sorts of messages being thrust at you.
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Apr 7, 2019 13:37
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