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Squalid posted:on the subject of WWII engineering and uniforms, does anyone have information about how the brodie helm was manufactured? I think you posted about it before Cessna, or at least someone described how much simpler it was than the stalhelm, but compared with the stalhelm there's much less information about it floating around on the internet. Did it also require multiple stamps to get the right shape? Had you found this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxrkHnlg9-k Seems like the process was:
No annealing or heat-treatment. I'm unclear on the point of the steel rim, but shearing operations generally leave sharp edges, so probably to cover that up in lieu of grinding the edge plus as reinforcement.
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Dec 20, 2019 19:12
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spiky butthole posted:Ideally pilots are tiny people weighing 110lbs (not sure about American planes) so when you are dogfighting that extra kilo of fuel you can carry instead of body weight may mean you get home. I've always thought that smaller people made better fighter pilots because your g-force tolerance improves with less distance between the brain and heart. Of course you need to be pretty fit, too.
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Dec 20, 2019 20:00
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Haven't there been legless fighter pilots that benefited that way? I wonder if anybody has tried blood doping in-flight to keep in top condition.
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Dec 20, 2019 20:07
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Cessna posted:I’m heading out of town for the Holidays, but if anyone is interested in more break-downs of German equipment/crap like this, let me know after the 1st and I’d be happy to take photos. What was Weimar-era gear like in comparison? I'm given to understand that the german army was basically defunded after Versailles; did they just use WWI leftovers until the Nazi rearmament started?
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Dec 20, 2019 20:16
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aphid_licker posted:I was a draftee in a non-combat branch of the year 2000 Bundeswehr, my wild guess is that nobody realized that it could be a problem because it was essentially a cargo cult army at that point. You dress up in your finest third generation hand-me-down camo gear and some otherwise unemployable guy does his best gunnery sergeant Hartman impression at you. They didn't have enough loving pants for everyone. It was a joke. that owns lol
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Dec 20, 2019 20:30
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SlothfulCobra posted:Haven't there been legless fighter pilots that benefited that way? In the first Starfox game, all the characters had robolegs because they got amputated at the knees to improve their ability to withstand G-forces.  I guess they retconned that later, or else kept the original legs on ice somewhere and reattached them. Weird question: anyone know if/where I could buy an inert 4" naval cannon shell? I feel like it'd be a neat tchotchke but all I can find is stuff like 105mm howitzer training shells, which isn't the same.  (also they're like two hundred dollars apiece, not that I'd expect naval shells to be cheaper)
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Dec 20, 2019 21:03
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Grand Prize Winner posted:What was Weimar-era gear like in comparison? I'm given to understand that the german army was basically defunded after Versailles; did they just use WWI leftovers until the Nazi rearmament started? The vast majority of their stuff was patched or repainted WWI gear, but occasionally you find something that they introduced that just makes you shake your head. For example, they used WWI helmets, which normally had a steel inner headband/ring with leather webbing attached to it. But in 1924 they developed a new all leather lining that had horsehair padding. It's really shoddy but hand sewn; you wonder why they bothered given that they had next to no budget, but millions of old steel liners lying around unused.
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Dec 20, 2019 21:15
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SlothfulCobra posted:Haven't there been legless fighter pilots that benefited that way? Yes. Douglas Bader (22 aerial victories) and Aleksey Maresyev (7 aerial victories) had lost both legs, and Hans-Ulrich Rudel (51 aerial victories) had lost one.
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Dec 20, 2019 21:17
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Cessna posted:you wonder why they bothered given that they had next to no budget, but millions of old steel liners lying around unused. Pork barrel?
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Dec 20, 2019 21:21
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Chamale posted:Yes. Douglas Bader (22 aerial victories) and Aleksey Maresyev (7 aerial victories) had lost both legs, and Hans-Ulrich Rudel (51 aerial victories) had lost one. And one of the changes made between the MkI and the MkII Spitfire was the introduction of a 'two step' rudder pedal, with a second footrest at a higher position - not as comfortable for long periods because it forced the pilot to bunch up his legs, but precisely because of that it improved his G-resistance. The MkI had already proved that in many situations the limit was the pilot blacking out, not the aircraft's abilities. Anecdotally the Bf109's cockpit was also cramped and uncomfortable but to exactly the same effect, and the P-47's cockpit (which RAF pilots joked was more like a sedan car cabin) actually let the pilot get rather too relaxed until they altered the seat/rudder bar positions. It's one of those things that gets lost in tedious discussions about weapon X v. weapon Y based purely on accumulated performance data. It's all very well comparing roll rates and turning radii between two aircraft but factors like G-resistance, systems complexity, control weight, how confident a pilot would be in taking a plane to its maximum abilities (which really factors into the Bf109 and the Zero, for example) and how much time was spent in servicing/maintenance per operational hour get ignored so you end up basically discussing things based on what might as well be War Thunder stats.
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Dec 20, 2019 21:36
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Nenonen posted:Pork barrel? the german biological compulsion to useless detailfucking?
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Dec 20, 2019 21:57
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Cessna posted:The vast majority of their stuff was patched or repainted WWI gear, but occasionally you find something that they introduced that just makes you shake your head. For example, they used WWI helmets, which normally had a steel inner headband/ring with leather webbing attached to it. But in 1924 they developed a new all leather lining that had horsehair padding. It's really shoddy but hand sewn; you wonder why they bothered given that they had next to no budget, but millions of old steel liners lying around unused. So what did the Soviets use, just a metal bottle and a tin cup? FuturePastNow posted:I've always thought that smaller people made better fighter pilots because your g-force tolerance improves with less distance between the brain and heart. Of course you need to be pretty fit, too.
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Dec 20, 2019 22:20
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HEY GUNS posted:it's weimar germany, there's no pork in there Surely some influencial sausage baron was going to profit from selling horse hair at government price.
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Dec 20, 2019 22:35
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Nessus posted:So what did the Soviets use, just a metal bottle and a tin cup? I am goofing off at work, otherwise I'd take a photo of my Soviet stuff! For canteens the Red Army generally used an aluminum canteen:   These had a cloth cover to keep it from clanging. There are dozens of different variations of the bottle and cloth cover (and types of cloth used) as these were produced as simply and expediently as possible. That said, during the desperate early war era they were forced to use aluminum to make planes, so the soldiers would get glass canteens:  These were very impractical. If you fall, it can shatter. For gas mask carriers, there were all sorts of bags used by the RKKA; again, just sew a bag out of what you have and you're set. Gas masks would be stuffed in whatever could carry them, if they were carried at all:  And, often gas mask bags were used for other things, like carrying food, spare socks, etc. Cessna fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Dec 20, 2019 |
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Dec 20, 2019 22:37
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Daaaang. Are there any basic rundowns of infantry equipment for the other powers? Like, Italy modernized its military some time in the late 20s-early 30s, so is their gear materially different from, say, the US or Britain? What about Japan? Were other small Axis powers different or did they just use German stuff?
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Dec 20, 2019 22:45
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HEY GUNS posted:it's weimar germany, there's no pork in there I love overengineered German solutions to minor problems.
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Dec 20, 2019 22:48
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VanSandman posted:I love overengineered German solutions to minor problems. 
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Dec 20, 2019 22:53
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Chamale posted:Hans-Ulrich Rudel (51 aerial victories) Rudel also only lost his leg in 1945 so he doesn't count as a legless fighter ace on account of not being legless, not being a fighter pilot and probably not being an ace. gently caress I hate Rudel.
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Dec 20, 2019 23:48
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Daaaang. Are there any basic rundowns of infantry equipment for the other powers? Like, Italy modernized its military some time in the late 20s-early 30s, so is their gear materially different from, say, the US or Britain? What about Japan? Were other small Axis powers different or did they just use German stuff? It depends- Romania used an eclectic mix of gear from all over the place- a Dutch helmet, czech light machine guns, etc. They got a bit more German as things went on but they started the war with a big mix that's reflective of a country wealthy mostly based on oil extraction. The Hungarians were a lot closer to Germany but they still had a mix of things, as they were one of the WW1 losers and had to re-arm later due to Trianon.
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Dec 21, 2019 00:11
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Were other small Axis powers different or did they just use German stuff? None of the Axis or Allied nations, major or minor, shared basic gear for the simple reason that they weren't allied before the war (the Commonwealth is an exception) so if their army existed before the war then their equipment was designed and made domestically. Mostly, anyway... Here is the supposed kit of a Finnish infantryman at the beginning of the Winter War. In reality there were uniforms for a bit more than half the army and boots for a third of the army so the imagery is just propaganda.   There were also three main types of helmets in use, one type actually imported from Germany and Hungary so there's that. In the below photograph the staff sergeant - in foreground - wears a Hungarian model 1938 and the corporal a Finnish model 1940. The Hungarian helmet was based on the German M35. Finland got a number of the Hungarian ones at the end of Winter War and then bought some replacements from Germany in 1941-44. The Finnish helmet was a copy of Swedish M37 helmet.  The third main type is the German WW1 Stahlhelm that were bought from France after WW1, these were the main helmet type in Winter War as far as there were helmets available. But not many men would have worn steel helmets in those temperatures anyway. Altogether Finnish army used helmets of Austrian, German, Czechoslovak, Italian, Hungarian, Imperial Russian, Swedish and Finnish origin. It was realized that e.g. the Italian helmets looked exactly like Soviet helmets, so they were given to non-frontline units such as anti-aircraft artillery to avoid friendly fire incidents.
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Dec 21, 2019 00:29
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Did everyone wear their actual issue boots, or were 'civilian' boots frequently worn as well?
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Dec 21, 2019 00:31
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FrangibleCover posted:Absolutely not. In no possible way, in no fashion, did a guy with a Stuka get more aerial victories than anyone who has ever flown for a non-totalitarian regime. Nazi kill claims were hilariously inflated. People will go on about how all German air victories were confirmed by a third party, but if you look at these confirmations a lot of them are to the tune of "no one saw him do it, but would you distrust the word of a brave and noble Aryan? One Knight's Cross, please".
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Dec 21, 2019 01:03
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Karia posted:Had you found this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxrkHnlg9-k No I hadn't! I'm pretty sure I remembered someone posting it was done in one draw but I couldn't find anything verifying that when I went back and looked and it was driving me crazy. I think the simplicity of production has probably made the process disinteresting to historians of industrial production -- there just isn't much to talk about. By comparison German helmets involved a lot more steps and overall involved much more complicated and therefore impressive engineering, which is what I guess some people criticize them for. Outside this thread I've mostly just seen people excited by their production process, which involved multiple progressive draws to produce the final shape: 
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Dec 21, 2019 01:06
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How to make helmets for all head sizes using one set of tooling.
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Dec 21, 2019 01:19
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The Lone Badger posted:Did everyone wear their actual issue boots, or were 'civilian' boots frequently worn as well? Yes, civvie boots were common. This in itself wasn't a huge problem, more than 3/4 of the population lived in the countryside and probably had some kind of suitable footwear to survive with in the winter. The government also set to fix the shortages so by the end of it everyone probably had a pair of army issue jackboots. At the beginning of Winter War the Finnish army had 337,000 men at arms and for them: 317,267 uniform tunics 350,000 uniform trousers 219,864 greatcoats and overcoats 364,133 field caps 112,251 fur caps 144,372 snow camouflage suits 175,000 rucksacks 75,000 steel helmets 163,000 pairs of footwear *figure from September The data does not tell how worn out the clothes were, in the case of army boots probably very much. source: Jaegerplatoon
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Dec 21, 2019 01:28
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Ensign Expendable posted:People will go on about how all German air victories were confirmed by a third party, but if you look at these confirmations a lot of them are to the tune of "no one saw him do it, but would you distrust the word of a brave and noble Aryan? One Knight's Cross, please".
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Dec 21, 2019 02:03
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Squalid posted:No I hadn't! I'm pretty sure I remembered someone posting it was done in one draw but I couldn't find anything verifying that when I went back and looked and it was driving me crazy. I think the simplicity of production has probably made the process disinteresting to historians of industrial production -- there just isn't much to talk about. By comparison German helmets involved a lot more steps and overall involved much more complicated and therefore impressive engineering, which is what I guess some people criticize them for. Outside this thread I've mostly just seen people excited by their production process, which involved multiple progressive draws to produce the final shape: I can only speak about this from a manufacturing engineering perspective, but: that's a ton of different pressing steps for no benefit over hot-stamping it in one shot. The material also had to be annealed after every single one of those press operations (probably not the trims, at least.) Think about how that affects production efficiency: suddenly you've got an enormous amount of work-in-progess between every step just devoted to heating up and cooling down. Then add in the fact that they're producing these in a bunch of different sizes, and the operation becomes absolutely enormous. It's interesting in there how there are two seperate trim operations: one at step 6 (back row, helmet on the left) and one at step 8 (back row, helmet third from the left.) Looks like it's just the outside getting too messed up by all the draws that causes the first trim op. Then they form the rim, trim that, and roll it over. They could probably have saved a couple steps just by simplifying the rim design (IIRC, that was actually done late in the war.) Overly complicated production processes are symptoms of bad engineering. It's not like this effort was being put in to produce a better helmet to help soldiers survive: it had worse impact resistance than the Russian WWII helmet. Hitler like the way this one looked, it looked pretty when they shot propaganda videos of victorious German soldiers, and it conjured up images of the perceived WWI glory that Hitler sought. The helmet was an aesthetic item, not just a practical one. And in the same way that the helmet design was compromised by aesthetic concerns, so too was its production process. Viewed through that lens, the process becomes an opportunity to showcase superior Aryan craftsmanship and talent. So when you see people marveling over the amazing German production process that could produce the Stahlhelm? They're reacting just like the Nazis wanted them to.
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Dec 21, 2019 03:39
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I absolutely love this post as a someone focused on earlier industry. I'll also point out there seems to be another trim between the last two steps. This method of raising the helmet also seems radically inefficient. On the one hand they aren't stretching it paper thin by dishing it aggressively but otoh they are moving so slowly if your assumptions are correct I cannot imagine how they produced enough helmets to fight a war. Like maybe they used multiple dies for hot forming, kinda like the way Gransfors makes axes? Idk.
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Dec 21, 2019 04:05
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:I absolutely love this post as a someone focused on earlier industry. I'll also point out there seems to be another trim between the last two steps. This method of raising the helmet also seems radically inefficient. On the one hand they aren't stretching it paper thin by dishing it aggressively but otoh they are moving so slowly if your assumptions are correct I cannot imagine how they produced enough helmets to fight a war. Like maybe they used multiple dies for hot forming, kinda like the way Gransfors makes axes? Idk. Thanks! I've got no sources beyond Cessna and Google, so take my comments with a grain of salt, though. Thinning it too much might be a concern doing it in one shot, even hot, yes, but that's because the design involves such sharp slopes and deep deformations (which is just for aesthetics.) The improved helmet that Hitler rejected for aesthetic reasons fixed a lot of that. Here's a video of Stahlhelm production from WWII. Notice how they're moving the blanks in and out of the dies by hand. Definitely done cold, which limits how much they can deform it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGxYeafDRHA I don't think that last one's a trim. Since that's after rolling the edges and painting I can't believe they'd trim it again. It looks to me like they folded the leather strap over the bill of the helmet for transport, like in the bottom-view pictures here this page. You can see one of the strap holes on the right side. This page lists seven factories that produced them, so it's not like there was just one place trying to do all the production. Cessna at one point talked about some design changes put in place fairly early in the war (~1942-3) because they couldn't keep up with demand like eliminating the rolled edge and simplifying the vent holes, so there was some manufacturing optimization put in at some point. Since all my history here is just copied from Cessna and various googled sites, I'll just link his discussions of this a couple threads back. Also has pictures of the proposed replacement that Hitler rejected. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3872282&userid=196675 EDIT: Fixed date on manufacturing optimizations Karia fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Dec 21, 2019 |
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Dec 21, 2019 04:41
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yeah there's no question the stalhelm was heavily mythologized by the Nazis as an example of the strength of German industry. It even featured prominently in their propaganda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGxYeafDRHA Now you can't actually blame Hitler for the production series in the first picture since I believe it dates from WWI, not that it really changes anything. I'm trying to avoid saying anything regarding whether the production was overly complicated or not because I'm not qualified to have an opinion. The difference in historical narratives is interesting though. The lasting influence of propaganda probably plays a role. I also suspect that because Brodie production was so simple it just isn't as interesting, even if that simplicity was a strength. For example I've seen that exact series of progressively stamped helmets in some museum either in North America or the UK, and searching for it I found pictures of another exhibit from a German museum. It might just be that looking at the process tells us something about early 20th century industry which gives it enduring interest, even if the decisions which lead to that process weren't the best.
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Dec 21, 2019 04:53
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Chamale posted:Yes. Douglas Bader (22 aerial victories) and Aleksey Maresyev (7 aerial victories) had lost both legs, and Hans-Ulrich Rudel (51 aerial victories) had lost one. How does a dude with no legs operate rudder pedals? Some kind of jury rigged prosthetic that attaches to the pedal?
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Dec 21, 2019 10:02
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Just regular prosthetic legs I think?
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Dec 21, 2019 10:49
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Geisladisk posted:How does a dude with no legs operate rudder pedals? Some kind of jury rigged prosthetic that attaches to the pedal?   Here's Maresyev modelling a more traditional type of leg, both men used these on the ground for doing normal tasks and Maresyev may have flown with them, I'm not very familiar with his story.
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Dec 21, 2019 13:09
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Proposed Soviet heavy tank destroyers Queue: IS-2 mod. 1944, Airborne tanks, Soviet WWII pistol and rifle suppressors, SU-100, DS-39 tank machinegun, Flakpanzers on the PzIV chassis, Sentinel, Comet, Faustpatrone, [Puppchen, Panzerschreck, and other anti-tank rocket launchers], Heavy Tank T32, Heavy Tanks T30 and T34, T-80 (the light tank), MS-1 production, Churchill Mk.VII, Alecto, Assault Tank T14, S-51, SU-76I, T-26 with mine detection equipment, T-34M/T-44 (1941), T-43 (1942), T-43 (1943), Maus development in 1943-44, Trials of the LT vz. 35 in the USSR, Development of Slovakian tank forces 1939-1941, T-46, SU-76M (SU-15M) production, Object 237 (IS-1 prototype), ISU-122, Object 704, Jagdpanzer IV, VK 30.02 DB and other predecessors of the Panther, RSO tank destroyer, Sd.Kfz. 10/4, Czech anti-tank rifles in German service, Hotchkiss H 39/Pz.Kpfw.38H(f) in German service, Flakpanzer 38(t), Grille series, Jagdpanther, Boys and PIAT, Heavy Tank T26E5, History of German diesel engines for tanks, King Tiger trials in the USSR, T-44 prototypes, T-44 prototypes second round, Black Prince, PT-76, M4A3E2 Jumbo Sherman, M4A2 Sherman in the Red Army, T-54, T-44 prototypes, T-44 prototypes second round, T-44 production, Soviet HEAT anti-tank grenades, T-34-85M, Myths of Soviet tank building: interbellum tanks, Light Tank M24, German anti-tank rifles, PT-76 modernizations, ISU-122 front line impressions, German additional tank protection (zimmerit, schurzen, track links) Available for request:  SU-101/SU-102/Uralmash-1 Myths of Soviet tank building: early Great Patriotic War IS-6 SU-100 front line impressions NEW  Medium Tank T20 GMC M-10  Centurion Mk.I  15 cm sFH 13/1 (Sf) Oerlikon and Solothurn anti-tank rifles Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.H-J Paper light tank destroyers Tiger II predecessors NEW  Summary of French interbellum tank development  Lahti L-39
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Dec 21, 2019 18:21
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Didn't they develop what would later become the East German Army's signature helmet during WWII, but it was rejected, despite being easier to manufacture, for not looking German enough?
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Dec 21, 2019 18:34
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Well, the DDR helmet was ugly
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Dec 21, 2019 18:38
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steinrokkan posted:Well, the DDR helmet was ugly Why are you so wrong?
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Dec 21, 2019 18:50
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Continuity RCP posted:Why are you so wrong? their apartments are good tho
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Dec 21, 2019 18:55
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Not as ugly as the Dutch M36 helmet though.
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Dec 21, 2019 18:57
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My feed came up with a redo of those 5 scariest sounds of war or whatever that had the buzz bomb and the Stuka in it, among other things. I was thinking that the MG-42's distinct sound was also something that scared a lot of Allies. This made me wonder if there was anything that, say, the Americans produced that particularly scared the Germans during their part of WW2--nukes are hence excluded. All I could gather is that there wasn't anything particularly distinct, but the volume of bombs and artillery in itself was ... more depressing than terrifying.SlothfulCobra posted:This guy's got an interesting video on a device that improves upon the longbow by giving it a built-in magazine to help fire quicker with less fiddling around nocking, and I wonder what some people in this thread would think about it. I was seeing the discussion on this and thought it was getting dismissed too much, but it was because I thought that extension was also locking the string in-place. That would definitely improve aim and reduce strength demands. However, I think what I was hearing was just the arrow getting nocked.
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Dec 21, 2019 19:32
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