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Scariest sound is "Alright I need three guys what don't owe me no money for a little routine patrol" e: unless you owe him money aphid_licker fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Dec 22, 2019 |
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Dec 22, 2019 19:56
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Remind me, what do arty tables do again? As for the Skink, I wiki'd it and it was built on the Grizzly tank... which is the Canadian-built M4A1. I check the build numbers... and it's 180. OK, why did they even bother?
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Dec 22, 2019 20:09
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Raenir Salazar posted:Didn't the Finns make some really substantial and effective reforms for artillery? Indeed. For example this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Correction_Circle Through his methods they were able to concetrate fire from multiple batteries effectively, especially at Tali-Ihantala (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tali-Ihantala). From the Tali-Ihantala wikipedia article: "The ensuing Finnish concentration of artillery fire was the heaviest in the country's military history.[31] It was based on the famed fire correction method of Finnish Artillery General Vilho Petter Nenonen, which enabled easy fire correction and quick changes of targets.[5] At the critical Ihantala sector of the battle, the Finnish defenders managed to concentrate their fire to the extent of smashing the advancing Soviet spearhead.[31] The clever fire control system enabled as many as 21 batteries, totaling some 250 guns, to fire at the same target simultaneously in the battle; the fire controller did not need to be aware of the location of individual batteries to guide their fire, which made quick fire concentration and target switching possible. The Finnish artillery fired altogether over 122,000 rounds of ordnance. This concentration was considered a world record at the time.[5] These fire missions managed to halt and destroy Soviet forces that were assembling at their jumping off points. On thirty occasions the Soviet forces destroyed were larger than battalion size.[10]"
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Dec 22, 2019 20:16
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JcDent posted:Remind me, what do arty tables do again? The Canadians built over 2000 Ram tanks, which were noticeably better than the Lee, but the Sherman was put into production a short time later and was much better than the Ram. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, the Canadians list decided to build a copy of the Sherman, but the start of production was delayed by the army both requesting that these tanks be compatible with American made Sherman parts and also demanding radical improvements to be made. While all of this was going on, the Canadians also started building the Sexton SPG on the Ram chassis. The Sexton was so good that the British struck a deal: Britain gets all of Canada's Sextons to distribute, and in exchange Canada gets as many Shermans as they need from British stock. Grizzly production was swiftly cancelled in order to produce the Sexton II, which used the Grizzly chassis.
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Dec 22, 2019 20:21
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I'm reading The Grand Fleet, and in one section it goes into some detail on use of different transmission systems from the power plant to the drive screws. It then notes offhandedly how despite all the advances made in this area, many WW2 ships (presumably the author is implicitly talking about UK ships here) had to make do with triple-expansion engines, but doesn't say why. Was it due to losing access to factories that could make the necessary components? Needing to streamline ship production because of the sheer quantity of craft needed? Something else?
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Dec 22, 2019 20:22
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A follow-up question: how was the Sexton better than existing SPGs?
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Dec 22, 2019 20:29
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JcDent posted:A follow-up question: how was the Sexton better than existing SPGs? Existing SPGs included the Bishop, which was so bad that it made the British question the value of SPGs altogether. Some of the gun crew had to sit outside on the engine deck since the casemate was only large enough for two people, there was barely any room for ammunition, so it had to be carried in a vulnerable trailer. The cramped casemate also greatly constricted the traverse and elevation of the gun. The Valentine was a pretty slow vehicle as it is, and a massive casemate and heavy gun made it even slower, plus had a drastic hit to reliability. The alternative was the Priest, which didn't use the 25-pounder. The Priest was begrudgingly used until more Sextons became available. There was actually a Priest with a 25-pounder project (Howitzer Motor Carriage T51) but the British elected to order Sextons instead because of how well they performed in landing trials, specifically because it could fire directly from landing craft. Unfortunately, Sextons were not actually available for the Normandy landings, but this ability was later used in the Battle of the Scheldt.
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Dec 22, 2019 20:41
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I'm reading The Grand Fleet, and in one section it goes into some detail on use of different transmission systems from the power plant to the drive screws. It then notes offhandedly how despite all the advances made in this area, many WW2 ships (presumably the author is implicitly talking about UK ships here) had to make do with triple-expansion engines, but doesn't say why. Was it due to losing access to factories that could make the necessary components? Needing to streamline ship production because of the sheer quantity of craft needed? Something else? In essence, it was because triple-expansion engines are much easier to build. Turbines require fairly precise engineering, while tolerances are much lower for the simpler triple-expansion engine. This meant that only a few yards and companies (mainly those that already produced naval vessels) had the ability to produce turbine engines, while pretty much any civilian yard had an engineering department capable of producing a triple-expansion engine. Any attempt to use those yards for naval production would therefore be limited in the choice of engines. Most escorts and smaller craft designed during the war were intended to be produced by civilian yards - the most famous example is probably the 'Flower' class of corvettes. The increased speed of production due to the increased simplicity was an added benefit.
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Dec 22, 2019 20:49
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That makes sense, thanks! I'd forgotten how many UK ships were produced by civilian yards in WW2.
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Dec 22, 2019 21:38
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JcDent posted:Remind me, what do arty tables do again? You have graphical firing tables (slide rulers), to help you compute data faster and apply non-standard conditions to get more accurate firing solutions. Tabular firing tables have firing data for standard conditions, so you could quickly extract things like time fuze settings and quadrant elevation (how high to aim) with just knowing your range to target. They’ll also serve as the basis for computing for non-standard conditions to get more accurate firing data. There’s a lot of other stuff you can use a TFT for but that’s the biggest one. Obviously there are systems now to automatically compute data but any FDC not running GFTs and a firing chart at the same time is just amateur- if the computer crashes you’ll want to have a backup method ready
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Dec 22, 2019 21:42
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What kind of equipment was needed to repair the Sherman, T34, and Panzer IV? I recall reading that Nazi tanks needed much heavier mechanic shops to repair, which was another flaw that limited their long-term durability.
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Dec 22, 2019 21:48
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Tias posted:FWIW the incident I read about happened prior to the first invasion of Finland before any total war footing happened. The one that I keep reading and hearing about is battle preparations before Kursk. JcDent posted:Remind me, what do arty tables do again? As for what generally the tables are doing: you have only a certain number of parameters to use to get the shell where you want it, but the calculations necessary to get to that point include many, many more parameters. The basic calculations will get you with a few hundred feet, and you can wing it from there, but your target has since rushed out of their trucks into stronger cover. Some of the additional factors that are hard to calculate are: Air temperature Air density The rotation of the Earth Barrel wear Barrel temperature Ammunition temperature--or I suppose the firing powder temperature? Edit: Since I never have been able to seen the real ones, I don't know what all they actually put in the math, but I know it was more than the basics. IIRC the first computers stateside spent a lot of their time between doing atomic bomb calculations, and then firing table calculations. The Americans were the only nation able to bring these pre-calculations up to the front and it enabled a gun to hit the target the first time the fastest. But wait, there's more! America also brought to the game: 1. So many god-drat guns and ammo. 2. Radio for coordinating batteries. 3. Proximity fuses so the shells would blow up above the ground instead of in the ground. The combination of the calculations, ammo, and communications meant that America had an obscenely short time-on-target: the time it takes from calling in the target to it getting blown up. You call in for an artillery strike. A level higher up heard the traffic and tells the local artillery to wait while additional batteries join the party. That can go up to apparently the Army level of artillery--I mean like 7th Army here, not the entire Army--are spinning their guns around to point at the piece of poo poo you called in. In the time it took you to read all this, the shells are on their way. And with everybody using the tables on their end, they've synchronized their firing times so that all their shells are going to hit a spread over the target area within seconds of each other. Apparently an Army-level bombardment happened at least once in Italy. Edit: I don't know if it created a terrible fear in the Germans that fought against it, but troops that had been fighting the Soviets awhile had to have it explained to them that this kind of thing was different and they better not get cozy in one spot for very long. Rocko Bonaparte fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Dec 22, 2019 |
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Dec 22, 2019 21:53
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Depends on what kind of repairs you need. The biggest difference would be replacing the transmission: on the Sherman you just unscrew the differential cover and it pops right out, on the T-34 you can similarly flip the rear plate down. The PzIV had a hatch in the front to allow access to the transmission, but I do't think you can get all of it out through there. The heavier tanks didn't give you even that luxury and you had to take off the turret and then maneuver the transmission out of the turret ring. The Panther had a removable driver's compartment roof for this purpose, but it wasn't very easy to get it out of there. You would obviously not be able to get this kind of work done without a heavy crane, whereas the Allied tanks could get away with using lighter equipment. I haven't seen a similar solution for a Sherman, but the T-34's turret could serve as a crane turntable to do maintenance on itself.
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Dec 22, 2019 21:54
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Lawman 0 posted:Reading a book about partition and I'm coming away frankly amazed that the british in India were not just outright massacred at the end.
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Dec 22, 2019 22:06
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Britain was poor and triple-expansion steam engines are cheap. Turbine production was all allocated to warships at the beginning of the war. But like everything else in the war, the US eventually was producing enough turbines to put them in everything and the Victory ships (the replacement for the Libertys) were turbine powered.
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Dec 22, 2019 22:25
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:That makes sense, thanks! I'd forgotten how many UK ships were produced by civilian yards in WW2. Randomcheese3 posted:In essence, it was because triple-expansion engines are much easier to build. Turbines require fairly precise engineering, while tolerances are much lower for the simpler triple-expansion engine. This meant that only a few yards and companies (mainly those that already produced naval vessels) had the ability to produce turbine engines, while pretty much any civilian yard had an engineering department capable of producing a triple-expansion engine. Any attempt to use those yards for naval production would therefore be limited in the choice of engines. Most escorts and smaller craft designed during the war were intended to be produced by civilian yards - the most famous example is probably the 'Flower' class of corvettes. The increased speed of production due to the increased simplicity was an added benefit. Just to add (on top of Randomcheese3's spot-on post): It wasn't just a shortage of turbines. The Mk3 LST was supposed to use the same American-sourced EMD diesel engines as the Mk2 but production of the prime movers was taken up with American LST and Cannon-class escort builds and US domestic locomotive production, so the British used the reciprocating triple-expansion engines from Flower/Castle-class corvettes, since production of those was already up and running and the orders for those classes was winding down. It also wasn't just a decision made on the basis of production and materials, but the skills and experience of those who would be operating the engines in service. Turbines were restricted to naval ships, ocean liners and a few fast reefer-freighters - 90+% of the British merchant navy was powered by reciprocating steam engines. If you're going to be drafting a lot of reservists and/or war-service-only engineers, machinists, stokers etc. into the naval service then it's a big help to put them in surroundings that they are already entirely familiar with. And there's nothing really wrong with the reciprocating steam engine for a lot of uses. By the 1940s it was an entirely matured technology, having been brought to near-perfection over the past 50 years. Provided you didn't need to make a lot of power at high speeds for long periods of time, it was pretty perfect; it was simple, cost-effective, reliable, economical and could keep plodding along with numerous faults and failures. For merchants ships and escort/patrol ships where speed wasn't really part of the design brief, it made perfect sense.
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Dec 22, 2019 22:32
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With the IV wasn’t it you couldn’t replace the transmission without pulling the engine?
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Dec 22, 2019 22:34
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LingcodKilla posted:With the IV wasn’t it you couldn’t replace the transmission without pulling the engine? I think that might have been the Panther? I know for sure that if the transmission went on the Panther you had to remove the entire front glacis plate which was, uh, not an easy task as you might imagine.
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Dec 22, 2019 23:03
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I believe that with the IV you at the very least had to uninstall everything in the driver/bow MG position to get out the transmission.
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Dec 22, 2019 23:30
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Tias posted:The rumble of tanks seem to repeat itself often in memoirs as one of the most hated things. The soviets, maybe others as well, practiced "ironing" recruits, which is shoving them all in a trench and driving over them with tanks until they were no longer (as) frightened. According to this recent Russian movie about Afghanistan, this was still a thing in the 80s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCGNE4B4vcs&t=2134s
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Dec 22, 2019 23:33
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Randarkman posted:To be honest I'd cast some doubts on how common this was as it requires that a unit training have a tank and fuel to run it available. The Soviets often operated under the practice of all available resources going to the front, soldiers training often were not able to do so with live ammunition, except for a few occasions, many units trained with mock rifles. The Germans did it routinely. I've read a few accounts of people going in for what we would call advanced MOS training today and having it done. Usually using a relatively obsolete tank. I forget the source now, but one account I'm half-remembering was in 1942 or 43 using a Pz I. Useless on the battlefield but terrifying to a raw recruit.
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Dec 22, 2019 23:46
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Cyrano4747 posted:The Germans did it routinely. I've read a few accounts of people going in for what we would call advanced MOS training today and having it done. Usually using a relatively obsolete tank. I forget the source now, but one account I'm half-remembering was in 1942 or 43 using a Pz I. Useless on the battlefield but terrifying to a raw recruit. Here's an American training film on AT tactics for infantry that shows it. Also some really cute looking Lees painted up to be ersatz panzer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taHFUKKKmJM Bonus pic of the Soviets doing it:  Bonus disney training film on how to use your Boys AT rifle to kill Hitler. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iL_6IyH9gs
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Dec 22, 2019 23:54
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We did some quick tank training in FDF infantry where we lied in a columns on ground in the path of a a T-55's creeping toward us. Then when the track was 1-2 metres away from squashing you, the CO tapped you with a stick and you rolled to the side. Afterwards we climbed on the tank and went on a tankodesantniki ride. I'm not quite sure if either of those skills are going to be particularly useful for survival on a modern battlefield, but I dare you to try to kill me by slowly rolling a tank toward me on a straight path! 
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Dec 22, 2019 23:54
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Ataxerxes posted:Finnish Artillery General Vilho Petter Nenonen, I think we have a vampire in our midst!
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Dec 23, 2019 01:21
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Tias posted:Now I discovered what the skink is, and sure it's rare, but.. In terms of having tanks available to train infantry with, simply use the tanks you're training tank crews with! If you don't have enough armour for that then you're going to lose anyway.
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Dec 23, 2019 02:46
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poo poo
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I bet whoever is getting ironed stars wishing that magnetic AT mines were are a real threat and not just Germans getting paranoid.
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Dec 23, 2019 05:47
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Tias posted:Now I discovered what the skink is, and sure it's rare, but.. Beats being lit up by a Crocodile
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Dec 23, 2019 08:33
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Bought some off-brand Lego today:
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Dec 23, 2019 08:54
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I think Lego made actual tank kits for Wargamin.net!
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Dec 23, 2019 09:19
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Cyrano4747 posted:Here's an American training film on AT tactics for infantry that shows it. Also some really cute looking Lees painted up to be ersatz panzer. I imagine there's a lot of competition for the title of "most unpleasant part of Soviet infantry training"
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Dec 23, 2019 10:46
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Lawman 0 posted:Reading a book about partition and I'm coming away frankly amazed that the british in India were not just outright massacred at the end. All I know was that it was a clusterfuck and millions were killed on both sides. I do not know why, or what the British were supposed to do between 45 to 47 to make it better?
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Dec 23, 2019 11:08
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Tree Bucket posted:I imagine there's a lot of competition for the title of "most unpleasant part of Soviet infantry training" By most accounts it was the mind-numbing tiredness. Most recruits had to plow fields and build camps while learning infantry tactics and equipment. GotLag posted:Beats being lit up by a Crocodile Point. I guess we'd have to limit the discussion to noises going on long enough for you to notice them before you're murked?
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Dec 23, 2019 11:13
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This not-Lego T-34-85 also comes with a couple of German soldiers to run over and a road sign with two boards on it: "Сталинград" and "Ростов салат". The first is easy to work out but I am not sure why the other is directing me to a salad.
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Dec 23, 2019 12:37
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Comstar posted:All I know was that it was a clusterfuck and millions were killed on both sides. I do not know why, or what the British were supposed to do between 45 to 47 to make it better? Invent a time machine to prevent colonialism I guess
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Dec 23, 2019 15:00
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JcDent posted:I think Lego made actual tank kits for Wargamin.net! Lego inventor turning in his grave right there.
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Dec 23, 2019 15:12
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GotLag posted:This not-Lego T-34-85 also comes with a couple of German soldiers to run over and a road sign with two boards on it: "Сталинград" and "Ростов салат". The first is easy to work out but I am not sure why the other is directing me to a salad. Because it reads "Rostov salad" aphid_licker fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Dec 23, 2019 |
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Dec 23, 2019 15:57
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JcDent posted:I think Lego made actual tank kits for Wargamin.net! No, that was some off brand not-lego. Lego has a strict no-military policy, and what few weapons they make are cartoony and goofy and never resemble any specific real weapons.
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Dec 23, 2019 17:54
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Well, sort of. 
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Dec 23, 2019 18:00
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I just 3D print my own little mini tanks  Geisladisk posted:No, that was some off brand not-lego. Lego has a strict no-military policy, and what few weapons they make are cartoony and goofy and never resemble any specific real weapons. Unless its Star Wars or whatever.
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Dec 23, 2019 18:01
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 17:02 |
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Geisladisk posted:No, that was some off brand not-lego. Lego has a strict no-military policy, and what few weapons they make are cartoony and goofy and never resemble any specific real weapons. They do push the limit sometimes. This is the furthest they've gotten, a lego version of a movie version of a toy version of the military.  If you look at their space themes over time, a lot of the earlier sets are much more neutral about ships and buildings out on alien planets, at most with some law enforcement, but later on, there's more implicit conflict with things like alien invaders and space marines.
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Dec 23, 2019 19:10
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