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Tias posted:frontsoldats Is that a real word? I've never seen it before. Edit : ah gently caress what a bad snipe. Uhhhhhhhh. Cod-pieces, cool part of historical clothing or coolest?
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Feb 4, 2021 14:45
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White Coke posted:What were the machine gun models they were working on? Were they making a universal machine gun like the Germans? Not quite: the DS-39/DT-39 were still separate infantry/tank variants, but the DS-39 was a great improvement over the Maxim.
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Feb 4, 2021 15:02
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Xiahou Dun posted:Is that a real word? I've never seen it before. It appears a lot in contemporary accounts. 
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Feb 4, 2021 16:32
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Acebuckeye13 posted:New Orleans was the third largest port in the country, but was functionally useless to the Union so long as the Confederacy controlled at least some part of the river. The longer Vicksburg stands, the longer the Union has to rely on railroads and lesser-developed or navigable waterways to transport food, finished goods, raw materials, and manpower from the Midwest to the East or for export (or vice-versa). The cascading effects are probably incalculable, but they were well understood at the time—which was why the Union spent so much effort and manpower to capture Vicksburg, which involved some insanely risky maneuvers from Grant to succeed. NO as a port was never particularly critical to the Union war effort; taking it or blockading it was much more about the economic damage it did to the south (which as I'm sure we both agree was substantial). Really, once NO fell, a lot of the value of the river to the CSA went with it. I'm sure we agree that denying the river's use to the Union would've been great, but again, not worth the stupendous cost in manpower and material that was spent trying to maintain it. In any case, the Tennessee and particularly the Cumberland rivers ended up being a lot more important to the Union supply effort in the west. I really don't know how much economic value the river had to the north during the war. My impression was that there was comparatively little movement of economic value over the Appalachians, but I've never really read any serious studies to that end. The Mississippi LOC was of course used to sustain the Department of the Gulf, but other than the Red River fiasco, I'm unaware of any major operations that would've made use of the lower Mississippi. Panzeh posted:The dispersed geography combined with the rivers meant that Union numerical superiority counted for more, and Davis couldn't reinforce them. This is absolutely true, which is why I think they should have adopted a strategy that consolidated lines and made best use of interior LOCs. I concede that it might not have been politically feasible but militarily speaking it made a lot more sense. quote:Oh, and abandoning the Mississippi was absolutely not in the cards- in particular, once the river was closed, percussion cap production would taper off, then nose dive as some of the materials needed were mined in Mexico. I've never heard of this -- if true, how did they get percussion caps after the summer of 63? bewbies fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Feb 4, 2021 |
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Feb 4, 2021 16:32
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Way back when, that was the first actual history book with the full academic apparatus of footnotes etc that I read. It was basically what I moved on to after reading a bunch of pop history, landing on Ambrose, and wanting a German version of Band of Brothers to figure out what was going on on the other side.
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Feb 4, 2021 16:35
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Cessna posted:It appears a lot in contemporary accounts. Learn something every day. Thanks! I speak German okay but that's not a word that came up when my Oma and I were making soup.
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Feb 4, 2021 16:44
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Circling back to Hitler, foreign policy moves, war with France etc for a moment: The key thing to remember in all of this is that Hitler's goals never were France or the Netherlands or even poo poo like Alsasce-Lorraine. Frankly even the Sudetenland was more or less theater and was far more important for neutralizing a militarily capable French ally in the east than bringing the Sudeten Germans into the Reich. It was always, always about securing space to the east. In the Nazi worldview races (and nations, which are basically synonymous if you're a functioning race unlike stateless peoples like Jews, Roma, etc) need to expand to survive. They never wanted to try to annex France, because frankly that's not the giant tracts of depopulate-able farmland that they're looking for. They wanted a Nazi American West, something HItler made explicit using exactly that comparison. The only reason to go to war with France is because they're an ally with Poland, and Poland is the real (immediate) prize. Long term it's all about the Ukrainian Steppe and turning that into a German Midwest, but in 1939 Poland is what's on the menu. Everyone involved, from Hitler down, would have been absolutely, utterly, unspeakably fine with France just noping out and letting the Poles get partitioned. Their foreign policy was only concerned with the western allies in so far as they were likely to respond to German aggression in the east.
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Feb 4, 2021 16:46
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Xiahou Dun posted:I speak German okay but that's not a word that came up when my Oma and I were making soup. If you want to get picky, "frontsoldats" is wrong, that's adding -s to make a plural like English; it should be "frontsoldaten." "Landsers" and "frontschwein" also appear often.
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Feb 4, 2021 16:53
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Cyrano4747 posted:The only reason to go to war with France is because they're an ally with Poland, and Poland is the real (immediate) prize. Long term it's all about the Ukrainian Steppe and turning that into a German Midwest, but in 1939 Poland is what's on the menu. I'm going to disagree a bit. In many ways - especially in the minds of the Nazi leadership - WWII was an attempt at a do-over of WWI. Defeating and humiliating France in the name of "vengeance" was a large component of this. Hitler himself had fought against the French, and wanted to see them beaten badly.
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Feb 4, 2021 16:56
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bewbies posted:I've never heard of this -- if true, how did they get percussion caps after the summer of 63? A very aggressive reclaiming of distilleries got enough copper to make caps through 1864. The CSA did manage to find a chemical substitute for the mercury but copper would've still been a problem had the war continued. I heard about it in Porter Alexander's book. I don't think a central approach, simply defending the routes Atlanta would really have been politically feasible, it's sort of like "what if Lincoln stripped the entire DC garrison to go all out at Chancellorsville" to me. Sure, but it doesn't make sense given the politics of it. The needs of state governments in fact drove the CSA to engage on campaigns to try to eliminate US coastal enclaves to meager success. Also, my civil war hot take is that I think Davis made significantly fewer mistakes in his role as a wartime president than Lincoln. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Feb 4, 2021 |
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Feb 4, 2021 16:58
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Xiahou Dun posted:Learn something every day. Thanks! Frontsoldat comes out of WW1, to the point where the Stahlhelm was sub-titled "Bund der Frontsoldaten" and you also have the Reichsbund Judischer Frontsoldaten. It has a specific connotation of people who were on the sharp end of the new modern warfare you see after 1914. I've also seen "Frontschwein" as a more colorful variation. Another one that I've been trying to track down a solid date on is Landser. That dates back to at least the decade before WW1 (It shows up in German dictionaries in 1907), and I've seen claims that it's older. That word got dragged through the mud by Neo Nazis pretty effectively, to the point where just looking it up today usually points you at a banned in Germany neo-Nazi punk band. WW1 is where it really gets traction, though, similar to Poilu and doughboy. The gut feel I have for it is that Frontsoldat is a bit more encompassing and includes basically all veterans of prolonged combat at the front, while Landser has much stronger connotations of rank and file enlisted soldiers. I can't quite articulate why, but I could see describing a Lieutenant or a Captain as a Frontsoldat, but calling anyone north of a Sergeant a Landser would feel really weird. e;fb
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Feb 4, 2021 17:07
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Cyrano4747 posted:Another one that I've been trying to track down a solid date on is Landser. ? 
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Feb 4, 2021 17:12
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From the book US Marines and Amphibious War by Isley and Crowl:quote:For the first few years practical training of these troops alternated between standard infantry ground maneuvers and landing exercises, with emphasis on the former. This first type consisted mostly of mock battles "fought" on Civil War sites, and these seem to have been designated almost as much for publicity as for practical reasons. In 1921 Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler USMC conducted extensive field maneuvers in the vicinity of the Civil War battlefield at Wilderness Run. The following year Gettysburg was the scene of these exercises which included a historic reproduction of Pickett's last charge for the special benefit of President Warren G. Harding and his party. In the autumn of 1923 the expeditionary brigade marched from Quantico to Newmarket, Virginia, where the battle of Newmarket was reenacted, with the cadet corps of the Virginia Military Institute participating in the demonstration. This was to commemorate the historic occasion when the cadets of V.M.I. volunteered to a man to join the Confederate Army and halt the Yankees' drive up the Shenandoah Valley in June of 1864. The next year field exercises were held near Sharpsburg, culminating on national defense day (September 12) in a demonstration of attack under modern battle conditions on the battlefield of Antietam. Forty thousand spectators and a host of official visitors witnessed this event, and at its close the troops marched back to Quantico via Washington where they were reviewed by the President.41
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Feb 4, 2021 17:14
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Do you have a solid source calling those people in particular Landser rather than Landsknechte? Especially something from before WW1? Because Landser itself can really only be traced back to 1907 in the context of "common soldier," at least from what I've found, and the etymology of it is pretty contested. Landsknecht is a common one, but I've also seen arguments that it's derived from Landsmann or Landswehr with a connotation of being wartime conscripts as opposed to professional, full time soldiers. There are also claims that it comes from Sachsen slang that equates to "buddy" with a dash of "countryman" but that feels kind of weak to me given the military context. Then again "grunt" doesn't exactly have a deep military connection other than infantry work being heavy on manual labor, so I'm not going to die on that hill.
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Feb 4, 2021 17:17
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Cyrano4747 posted:Do you have a solid source calling those people in particular Landser rather than Landsknechte? Especially something from before WW1? Unfortunately, no - it's just speculation on my part that there's a common root. (Thus my question mark.)
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Feb 4, 2021 17:20
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bewbies posted:NO as a port was never particularly critical to the Union war effort; taking it or blockading it was much more about the economic damage it did to the south (which as I'm sure we both agree was substantial). Really, once NO fell, a lot of the value of the river to the CSA went with it. I'm sure we agree that denying the river's use to the Union would've been great, but again, not worth the stupendous cost in manpower and material that was spent trying to maintain it. In any case, the Tennessee and particularly the Cumberland rivers ended up being a lot more important to the Union supply effort in the west. I want to say I'm learning a lot about the ACW from these posts but mostly I'm learning how incredibly little I personally know about the ACW. Slowing beginning to comprehend the size of the chasm of ignorance I've got.
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Feb 4, 2021 17:22
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Cessna posted:I'm going to disagree a bit. In many ways - especially in the minds of the Nazi leadership - WWII was an attempt at a do-over of WWI. Defeating and humiliating France in the name of "vengeance" was a large component of this. Hitler himself had fought against the French, and wanted to see them beaten badly. Be that as it may the policy was east-facing. I think that both political and military leadership thought that French intervention was inevitable and even relished the idea of getting some payback for WW1, but defeating France wasn't an end in and of itself in the way that annexing land to the east was. If France just utterly rolls over in 1939 and lets the Poles hang I don't see the invasion happening. Maybe Hitler comes back around to try and peel off Alsasce-Lorraine as a final gently caress you, but if France just throws their hands up and embraces abject surrender it doesn't really go beyond that. Doubly so because without a war with England you don't have basing needs etc. But once Hitler is in power there is basically nothing that the Polish government can do to prevent a war with Germany. Even giving up the Danzig corridor only ends the immediate threat and probably leads to partition a year or two later, like what happened with Czechoslovakia.
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Feb 4, 2021 17:22
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Cessna posted:Unfortunately, no - it's just speculation on my part that there's a common root. (Thus my question mark.) Ah, sorry, I interpreted that as you saying they were the same. My personal take is the Landsmann/Landswehr angle. I think that fits in with the enlisted/conscript/everyday rear end in a top hat flavor that it shares with Poilu, grunt, etc more than Landsknecht, seeing as those guys were professional soldiers and mercenaries. Landsmanner get called off their farms and to the Landswehr by the state, Landsknechte choose the life etc. But, again, etymology is weird so the people insisting some random Saxon calling his bunk mates by regional slang is what started it all could very well be right.
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Feb 4, 2021 17:24
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Cyrano4747 posted:Be that as it may the policy was east-facing. I think that both political and military leadership thought that French intervention was inevitable and even relished the idea of getting some payback for WW1, but defeating France wasn't an end in and of itself in the way that annexing land to the east was. One of the differences is that a defeated France got to continue self government as a sympathetic neutral. Yes, I know about occupied France, but still, the surrender terms said specifically that the occupation would only last until the final peace. There was no way defeated Poland was ever going to be allowed self-government.
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Feb 4, 2021 17:33
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Cessna posted:If you want to get picky, "frontsoldats" is wrong, that's adding -s to make a plural like English; it should be "frontsoldaten." Yeah, I got that. But still thanks. Cyrano4747 posted:Frontsoldat comes out of WW1, to the point where the Stahlhelm was sub-titled "Bund der Frontsoldaten" and you also have the Reichsbund Judischer Frontsoldaten. It has a specific connotation of people who were on the sharp end of the new modern warfare you see after 1914. I've also seen "Frontschwein" as a more colorful variation. Woof. From 45 seconds of googling while I ate lunch this looks like a thorny topic that's badly documented. If anyone cares I could look into it more, but I'm not actually a specialist in Germanic languages, I just incidentally speak 2 of them. Gun-to-my-head tummy feels is it's like Landsleute that wandered a bit, but I'd be guessing so god drat hard.
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Feb 4, 2021 17:34
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Cyrano4747 posted:Be that as it may the policy was east-facing. I think that both political and military leadership thought that French intervention was inevitable and even relished the idea of getting some payback for WW1, but defeating France wasn't an end in and of itself in the way that annexing land to the east was. I don't disagree, but I'll point out that in Mein Kampf Hitler repeatedly and specifically calls out France's supposed desire to divide and subjugate Germany, their possession of the Ruhr, etc. He also refers to "the coming war with France" more than once. This isn't one of those "either/or" things; Hitler wanted to defeat France AND the USSR.
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Feb 4, 2021 17:39
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A smart Hitler would probably look a lot more like Franco and less like... well, Hitler. Don't bother with all that conquering and lebensraum poo poo. Just condolidate power once you get it and then spend the next decades being dictator of Germany and not loving with your neighbors until you die in the 80s. But this is probably the gayest, blackest Hitler imaginable.
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Feb 4, 2021 17:42
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Geisladisk posted:A smart Hitler would probably look a lot more like Franco and less like... well, Hitler. I mean in that situation it also assumes that german revanchist or expansionist attitude is only based in hitler, it was a sentiment held much more beyond just the one man and it would require hitler having the political capital and will to actively push against that sentiment from elsewhere.
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Feb 4, 2021 18:13
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'Excuse me, I am looking for Landwehr?' 'Oh sorry, they are over there look for the peaked forage caps...'
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Feb 4, 2021 18:37
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Cyrano4747 posted:Frontsoldat comes out of WW1, to the point where the Stahlhelm was sub-titled "Bund der Frontsoldaten" and you also have the Reichsbund Judischer Frontsoldaten. It has a specific connotation of people who were on the sharp end of the new modern warfare you see after 1914. I've also seen "Frontschwein" as a more colorful variation. I encountered this in my own stint in the Bundeswehr, but "Frontsoldat" was generally used to describe soldiers who actually fought, to differentiate from soldiers like me, who never left Germany or shot more than targets (or one time, very nearly a deer). If you called a Hauptmann (captain) a Frontsoldat, you better hope it's actually a combat veteran from like Afghanistan, KSK or something, otherwise you better hope he has a good sense of humor.  And yeah, calling a Noncom a Landser would be even worse than calling some random Lieutenant working for 7 years in a staff position a "Frontsoldat". You'd better hope that Feldwebel isn't like, drunk in a bar or something when you call him Landser, or that would go over like one of those fight scenes in a Bud Spencer movie
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Feb 4, 2021 19:05
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Polyakov posted:I mean in that situation it also assumes that german revanchist or expansionist attitude is only based in hitler, it was a sentiment held much more beyond just the one man and it would require hitler having the political capital and will to actively push against that sentiment from elsewhere. Right taking other peoples poo poo was considered good politics by many politicians and generals in Germany and the thought was that increasing the average size of a farm plot would improve social stability in Germany.
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Feb 4, 2021 19:36
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How important was Kentucky to controlling the Mississippi? I've seen a Lincoln quote about how he needed to have Kentucky in order to win the war, but there are lots of Lincoln "quotes". Didn't they declare neutrality?
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Feb 4, 2021 20:41
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White Coke posted:How important was Kentucky to controlling the Mississippi? I've seen a Lincoln quote about how he needed to have Kentucky in order to win the war, but there are lots of Lincoln "quotes". Didn't they declare neutrality? It was fairly significant, though not critical- the main appeal of controlling KY was to control the routes into TN, which allowed access to much of the rest of the South. The CSA ended up invading Kentucky to occupy a fortress to guard the Mississippi river. The US invaded afterwards to take Paducah, but the KY legislature only demanded the expulsion of Confederate forces. Pretty much any state with Mississippi coastline had relevance in controlling the river as fortresses could hold up Union naval attacks and allow the Confederates the use of at least parts of the river, keeping the west and east connected. This is important, especially with respect to the aforementioned copper imports from Mexico which were a vital part of the CSA war effort.
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Feb 4, 2021 20:55
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Panzeh posted:A very aggressive reclaiming of distilleries got enough copper to make caps through 1864. The CSA did manage to find a chemical substitute for the mercury but copper would've still been a problem had the war continued. My recollection was that it was the loss of the copper mines near Chattanooga that really put the CSA in a panic about its copper supply. Do you have some more info on Mexican imports? I'd never heard they were so much more important than the copper basin production. White Coke posted:How important was Kentucky to controlling the Mississippi? I've seen a Lincoln quote about how he needed to have Kentucky in order to win the war, but there are lots of Lincoln "quotes". Didn't they declare neutrality? That portion of the river was one of the most important strategic contests early in the war, though not all of it was in Kentucky proper. Taking Cairo (which on that weird MO/IL/KY border triangle) was one of the most significant (and in my opinion underrated) logistical victories of the war. A HUGE portion of the supplies that would eventually make it down the Cumberland were staged there. The battle at Island 10/New Madrid was another really big deal, it also just sort of got forgotten as Shiloh happened right about the same time. Relating to this discussion, that was probably the point at which everyone should have recognized that traditional riverine forts were completely inadequate to keep modern armored gunboats from doing more or less whatever they wanted, and the end result really foretold exactly what would happen on a much larger scale at Vicksburg the following year. It was also a pretty inspired bit of very early joint warfare.
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Feb 4, 2021 21:25
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White Coke posted:How important was Kentucky to controlling the Mississippi? I've seen a Lincoln quote about how he needed to have Kentucky in order to win the war, but there are lots of Lincoln "quotes". Didn't they declare neutrality? Kentucky wasn't directly important to controlling the Mississippi, but was absolutely critical to controlling the Ohio and for its rail connections to Tennessee. It was a major early failing of Confederate policy that Polk occupied Columbus and ended the state's neutrality. The major reason why the CSA positions in Kentucky and west/central Tennessee unraveled so quickly in early 1862 was that Union armies were able to penetrate the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers and easily outflank any Confederate positions on the Mississippi north of Vicksburg. If Union armies are prevented from crossing Kentucky due to neutrality, any invasion of the deep south must come from the coast or the Mississippi, which would be both easier to defend against and present a huge logistical challenge.
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Feb 4, 2021 21:32
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bewbies posted:My recollection was that it was the loss of the copper mines near Chattanooga that really put the CSA in a panic about its copper supply. Do you have some more info on Mexican imports? I'd never heard they were so much more important than the copper basin production. I need to dig into it, my source is Porter Alexander's book, but it's very possible he could've been mistaken(as by that time he was in the field). EDIT: You're right, it looks like most of the copper was produced in the Chattanooga area, though there were some imports from Mexico, it wasn't an on/off switch or anything for copper production. I'm still not certain a wholescale abandonment of the western theatre other than the route to Atlanta was at all politically viable, but it's more militarily viable than I thought. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Feb 4, 2021 |
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Feb 4, 2021 21:35
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Ensign Expendable posted:Not quite: the DS-39/DT-39 were still separate infantry/tank variants, but the DS-39 was a great improvement over the Maxim. Neat. Weren't they also working on a 107mm gun? Were they making any new artillery pieces that got left behind? The 122mm guns they put in the IS-2 seem like they were used because it was what they had available.
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Feb 5, 2021 01:28
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Lawman 0 posted:Right taking other peoples poo poo was considered good politics by many politicians and generals in Germany and the thought was that increasing the average size of a farm plot would improve social stability in Germany.
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Feb 5, 2021 01:33
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:maybe more like Mussolini. Opportunistically picking on weaker neighbors, Lmao
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Feb 5, 2021 02:45
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i was thinking more ethiopia and albania and such
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Feb 5, 2021 03:45
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White Coke posted:Neat. Weren't they also working on a 107mm gun? Were they making any new artillery pieces that got left behind? The 122mm guns they put in the IS-2 seem like they were used because it was what they had available. Yeah, there was a high velocity 107 mm gun in development designed to take out German superheavy tanks (this was when the heaviest tank Germany actually had weighed 20 tons). A tank version was tested on the KV-2 and was going to be used on the KV-3, 4, and 5. This was technically a viable weapon and the idea of using it in a tank or tank destroyer came up later in the war, but the fact that there were no 107 mm AP shells in production ruined any chances of this happening. The 122 mm D-25 used in the IS-2 was derived from the A-19 corps gun which was considered as an ersatz anti-tank weapon back in 1940. Concrete piercing shells were already in production, which turned out to be good enough to put a big ol' hole in the front of Tiger tanks. Proper AP was developed before production of the tank gun began.
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Feb 5, 2021 03:59
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Nessus posted:Adolf Hitler: Strong advocate of land reform Well not him but a bunch of his guys under him like Backe where they plotted out exactly how they were gonna hand out all that land they were gonna conquer in the USSR and hand it out to all the good loyal Germans. You know instead of like using tractors or something because that would get in the way of having glistening Germans for propaganda or whatever. That previous post wasn't worded that well. Lawman 0 fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Feb 5, 2021 |
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Feb 5, 2021 05:16
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Ensign Expendable posted:Yeah, there was a high velocity 107 mm gun in development designed to take out German superheavy tanks (this was when the heaviest tank Germany actually had weighed 20 tons). A tank version was tested on the KV-2 and was going to be used on the KV-3, 4, and 5. This was technically a viable weapon and the idea of using it in a tank or tank destroyer came up later in the war, but the fact that there were no 107 mm AP shells in production ruined any chances of this happening. I've always wondered why 107 and 122? You often see stuff in either round inches or millimeters (100, 85, 150) but those two seem rather odd. Old shot weight calibers?
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Feb 5, 2021 05:42
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Taerkar posted:I've always wondered why 107 and 122? You often see stuff in either round inches or millimeters (100, 85, 150) but those two seem rather odd. Old shot weight calibers? iirc they design with inches but use/mark sizes by metric.
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Feb 5, 2021 05:49
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Jobbo_Fett posted:iirc they design with inches but use/mark sizes by metric. Right, but 107mm is 4.2" and 122mm is 4.8", so it's weird in both systems.
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Feb 5, 2021 05:53
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