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Fish of hemp posted:United states' attack on Iraq just turned 18. Is it still off limits or can we talk about the historical accuracy of Generation Kill? My roommate's brother was Force Recon in the late 2000s when it aired and my roommate came back from his brother's wedding and said somebody at the party asked some of the guys how realistic it was and got the answer "it's pretty good, it's just over the top dramatic. Nobody gets that upset about killing civilians, either. It sucks but you get on with your job."
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Mar 22, 2021 16:03
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feedmegin posted:Also, what does a humvee have that can touch a ZSU? They're armoured. They're murder against poo poo like that. Shilka's armour doesn't account for much, it's intended to protect the crew from shrapnel but M2 Browning AP should be able to penetrate it from a couple hundred yards. I don't remember if they had any of those in Generation Kill. But you're correct that it would be a bad fight to get into.
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Mar 22, 2021 16:03
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 i watched a documentary made in -81 called Stripes, how accurate was that? iirc someone had posted in an earlier thread that the army was in a quite dire place after the vietnam war, and it took some time for them to get their poo poo together
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Mar 22, 2021 16:05
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Nenonen posted:The US war time "know your enemy" propaganda film about Japanese is prefaced with "Our good Nisei units are fighting the Krauts and defending Freedom with valor and in no way should any of this be taken against them. Now, let's sit back and look at what brutal-yet-ridiculous fascist monkeys these ***s are!" Well, not quite that extremely, but I still find it funny as if your average WASP GI is going to keep that disclaimer to his heart and remember it when ever he sees an Asian American brother in arms. Sure, post early '43 that's the slant of the propaganda, but before that they didn't bother with the first part. Even after, the only reasonable ways you as a WASP GI were going to see a Nikkei soldier at all was if you were with the 34th ID or if you were assigned to an intelligence unit that had Nikkei people doing the translation (primarily strategic radio traffic intercept stuff as a REMF) so it probably wasn't that important to draw a distinction. In a similar vein I always felt bad for all the Chinese and ABCs that got their shops smashed up because people mistook them for Nikkei right after Pearl Harbor. Alchenar posted:Sobel could also have been bad at his job, but it's suspicious that the narrative that the show settled on is the one where the heroes get to be fairly clean heroes. The main criticism of Sobel as a leader was that he was 'petty and vindictive', which happens to be exactly how someone giving him anti-semitic abuse would describe him. I think you've put this very well.
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Mar 22, 2021 16:29
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:In a similar vein I always felt bad for all the Chinese and ABCs that got their shops smashed up because people mistook them for Nikkei right after Pearl Harbor. Earlier I mentioned that one of the volunteers on Pampanito in the 90's was a guy who had been a welder in the shipyards in WWII. He was US-born Chinese, and got a lot of grief for being Asian regardless of his contributions to the war effort.
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Mar 22, 2021 16:35
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FastestGunAlive posted:I’ve only seen the show but I would say that doesn’t even depict Sobel as effective at training people. Just good at PT. I would think that the dispersed nature of paratroop operations would necessitate good small unit leadership and individual initiative, both things he very much did not train Easy in. A lot of the stuff that Sobel does that comes off as being a dick actually has good training value. Shared adversity and having a guy everyone can unite around hating is great for building unit cohesion. One scene that really stands out to me is when he goes and revokes everyone's weekend passes for a bunch of minor bullshit. If you've never done basic training that can come off as being completely unreasonable, but that kind of poo poo happens all the time. The secret is they were never going to get weekend passes, Sobel was going to dig until he found enough hits to justify "revoking" them. It's a classic bit. Like Edgar Allen Ho said, the real vindication for the training should be how well they performed in combat.
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Mar 22, 2021 18:04
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Wingnut Ninja posted:A lot of the stuff that Sobel does that comes off as being a dick actually has good training value. Shared adversity and having a guy everyone can unite around hating is great for building unit cohesion. One scene that really stands out to me is when he goes and revokes everyone's weekend passes for a bunch of minor bullshit. If you've never done basic training that can come off as being completely unreasonable, but that kind of poo poo happens all the time. The secret is they were never going to get weekend passes, Sobel was going to dig until he found enough hits to justify "revoking" them. It's a classic bit. Like Edgar Allen Ho said, the real vindication for the training should be how well they performed in combat. Sixta says the same thing about the ridiculous grooming standard stuff at the end of Gen Kill, that it gives something for the men to all hate together and that improves cohesion.
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Mar 22, 2021 18:05
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I for one, am shocked, shocked, that whatshisface from Friends was a hardass.
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Mar 22, 2021 18:12
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Wingnut Ninja posted:One scene that really stands out to me is when he goes and revokes everyone's weekend passes for a bunch of minor bullshit. If you've never done basic training that can come off as being completely unreasonable, but that kind of poo poo happens all the time. Weekend passes in boot camp? Why, in my day... zoux posted:Sixta says the same thing about the ridiculous grooming standard stuff at the end of Gen Kill, that it gives something for the men to all hate together and that improves cohesion. This isn't exactly good leadership either. It's pretty "lowest common denominator" as approaches go.
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Mar 22, 2021 18:17
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I don't think the takeaway is that it's good leadership, just that the Sgt. Maj. thought it was. It's from a scene in the last (?) episode where Reporter is directly interviewing him, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was a direct quote from the book. e:  Oh no
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Mar 22, 2021 18:30
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Got it. That makes more sense. I haven't seen the show/read the book.
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Mar 22, 2021 18:31
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Cessna posted:This isn't exactly good leadership either. It's pretty "lowest common denominator" as approaches go. Yeah, that stuff works in boot camp, where the goal is to turn civilians into soldiers, but it's a lovely thing to do in an actual unit.
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Mar 22, 2021 18:35
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Cessna posted:I haven't seen the show/read the book. And here I was refreshing this thread like crazy just read Cessna's opinion on Generation Kill. Your critique on Full Metal Jacket was really good and I was hoping for something similar. I liked Generation Kill and understood it as somewhat reasonable portrayal of USMC. The guys in the series have dumb jokes and sex related talk. They complain all the time about their inferior equipment and their stupid officers. That is something that I got familiar with, during my time in armed forces. The sheer stupidity and ignorance of the USMC officer corps really sticks out in the series and my friends, who haven't served, asked me if that could be true? I pointed out that Evan Wright was following common marines all the time and recording their side of the story. Had he been riding in the officer car and recording their story, it would painted a completely different picture. Then again, the reporter was free to go between the different sites and units, whereas marines were always tied to their duties on the field. He got the whole picture to the book and series. On the other hand, the marines themselves said in interviews that they understood the big picture of the battles only afterwards by reading the book. The soldier's viewpoint on the field is so narrow.
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Mar 22, 2021 19:10
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The idea that a Marine isn't happy without something to bitch about may be stupid but it's definitely widespread.
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Mar 22, 2021 19:15
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Nikkei It's "nissei". Nikkei is what they call the Tokyo stock exchange Pyle posted:The sheer stupidity and ignorance of the USMC officer corps really sticks out in the series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-AP-5z5NKc
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Mar 22, 2021 19:15
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Pyle posted:On the other hand, the marines themselves said in interviews that they understood the big picture of the battles only afterwards by reading the book. The soldier's viewpoint on the field is so narrow. Which is not too surprising. A lot of whatever time you have at hand you need to use for eating, sleeping, making GBS threads, finding some means to stink less like poo poo, keeping in touch with family, and so on. It's exhausting and stressful enough without trying to track everything going around your unit.
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Mar 22, 2021 19:16
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Pyle posted:And here I was refreshing this thread like crazy just read Cessna's opinion on Generation Kill. Your critique on Full Metal Jacket was really good and I was hoping for something similar. Aw, thanks! Pyle posted:The guys in the series have dumb jokes and sex related talk. They complain all the time about their inferior equipment and their stupid officers. That is something that I got familiar with, during my time in armed forces. The sheer stupidity and ignorance of the USMC officer corps really sticks out in the series and my friends, who haven't served, asked me if that could be true? I pointed out that Evan Wright was following common marines all the time and recording their side of the story. Had he been riding in the officer car and recording their story, it would painted a completely different picture. Sounds about right. I remember very few mediocre officers. Either they were really good and I would have followed them to fight in hell, or they were really bad, often martinets high on the smell of their own farts. It's possible that I just don't remember the ones who fell in the middle, but I distinctly remember having that conversation at the time (either they were great or awful). Pyle posted:On the other hand, the marines themselves said in interviews that they understood the big picture of the battles only afterwards by reading the book. The soldier's viewpoint on the field is so narrow. This is absolutely true. You get really focused on what's in front of you. But what's happening a mile or so away might as well be happening on Mars.
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Mar 22, 2021 19:42
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Scratch Monkey posted:It's "nissei". Nikkei is what they call the Tokyo stock exchange That's not correct. Nisei are second generation immigrants. Nikkei are the generalized Japanese diaspora that encompasses all generations, written 日系. The stock exchange is written 日経. I'm using the term Nikkei because while most Nikkei serving in the armed forces were Nisei, it's possible that some could also have been Sansei.
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Mar 22, 2021 19:47
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bewbies posted:I've never seen generation kill, but I thought jarhead was a pretty realistic war movie. the hurt locker made me more mad then any movie I've ever seen before or since and I maintain an active vendetta against the "director" and "screenwriter" poo poo. Well, on second thought, you don't have to come to my "Strange Days" watch party bewbies posted:I didn't see the director's next movie but I did see an interview she did with it, wherein she explained "zero dark thirty" is a "military term for 30 minutes after midnight" which, no lady, that isn't what it means. Saw the movie in early quar time for the first time. I thought it was good, insofar as it establishes two stories and tells both well: first, hunting down Bin Laden, and second, (and this could be a *highly questionable* take, I'm just repeating what the movie says) that a lot of the crazy behavior [read: torture] around the hunt for same was a trauma reaction. That central character at least was totally ruthless in her goal as a result of trauma, and only starts to deal once Bin Laden is dead. I have no idea if this detail is real, but I do really like the idea that the thing that gave OBL away was his discipline in staying un-identified, so his behavior only made sense if a big national government was after him. Also the Seal Team had some loving bizarre night vision equipment, bordering on what a 1950s alien would wear ChubbyChecker posted:i watched a documentary made in -81 called Stripes, how accurate was that? Ah, I can answer this. Now the idea of a tactical Tank Killer RV we know was tried out extensively in the early 1980s, only to discover it was only effective at killing old American tanks. (That was Grumman's fault.) And we do know that one of the TK-RVs did accidentally find itself driving in communist Czechoslovakia, but snuck over the Swiss [?] border without being noticed. No, the bizarre, glaring fault as to that movie's realism is this: as an early 1980s movie, it has this thing where Murray and Ramis hook up with two female MPs. And this being the 80s, the hottest one goes to Murray, and the less hot one goes to Ramis. But this is silly in the extreme, because the "less hot" one is played by Sean Young in her second movie role. And in what world are you dismissing a sweet baby angel like young Sean Young as less hot because she has black hair?  Clearly her character could have posted here: 
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Mar 22, 2021 20:07
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:That's not correct. Nisei are second generation immigrants. Nikkei are the generalized Japanese diaspora that encompasses all generations, written 日系. The stock exchange is written 日経. I'm using the term Nikkei because while most Nikkei serving in the armed forces were Nisei, it's possible that some could also have been Sansei. 
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Mar 22, 2021 20:20
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Wingnut Ninja posted:A lot of the stuff that Sobel does that comes off as being a dick actually has good training value. Shared adversity and having a guy everyone can unite around hating is great for building unit cohesion. One scene that really stands out to me is when he goes and revokes everyone's weekend passes for a bunch of minor bullshit. If you've never done basic training that can come off as being completely unreasonable, but that kind of poo poo happens all the time. The secret is they were never going to get weekend passes, Sobel was going to dig until he found enough hits to justify "revoking" them. It's a classic bit. Like Edgar Allen Ho said, the real vindication for the training should be how well they performed in combat. I’ve served in units with toxic leadership and yea, it’s effective in some ways at building camaraderie in opposition to the leader, but it does not make a healthy unit. Units like this I served in were highly skilled, because they had to be, but were far more vulnerable to critically imploding and were more gun shy in fear of being targeted by that toxic personality. The pass thing might be a “classic bit” that flies in basic training but absolutely does not fly when you’re a company commander with leaders and soldiers who want to be treated as grown men and given the opportunity to lead.
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Mar 22, 2021 20:45
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FastestGunAlive posted:I’ve served in units with toxic leadership and yea, it’s effective in some ways at building camaraderie in opposition to the leader, but it does not make a healthy unit. Units like this I served in were highly skilled, because they had to be, but were far more vulnerable to critically imploding and were more gun shy in fear of being targeted by that toxic personality. Also people might have friends or family flying in to visit, or have a vacation planned with the kids. Once you are out of basic training a military unit in garrison is a lot more like a regular job than people think. People have kids, spouses, responsibilities outside of the military and messing with that is really bad for morale.
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Mar 22, 2021 22:39
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SerCypher posted:Once you are out of basic training a military unit in garrison is a lot more like a regular job than people think. My last job was as an instructor with Amphibious Assault School. I taught classes and did field time teaching new jarheads. Unless I was in the field it was just like a civilian job; all of the instructors were hand-picked sergeants or above, so we were left alone. This was on Camp Pendleton; I had a decent apartment near the beach in Carlsbad and surfed every day.  This wasn't enough to get me to stay in when my time was up, but it was a good gig.
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Mar 22, 2021 22:56
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* what was the IL-2's immediate successor as a close-air-support aircraft for the Soviets? Some remarks on what its design/performance was like would be welcome, if you have any such thoughts. * I've heard that the FW-190 was used in a close-air-support role, particularly in the context of anti-air weaponry and doctrine having improved in the latter parts of the war to the extent that dive-bombing was too dangerous and you needed something that could either strafe (since that would give the plane a diversity of approaches) or do something called loft bombing (? which wouldn't leave the plane as predictable/vulnerable/slow as dive bombing). How widespread was this use of the plane? Was the design suited for it? Was it good at it?
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Mar 23, 2021 08:07
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gradenko_2000 posted:* what was the IL-2's immediate successor as a close-air-support aircraft for the Soviets? Some remarks on what its design/performance was like would be welcome, if you have any such thoughts. The IL-10, which was a improved version that came into service at the tail end of the war and remained in service until 1956, at that point Soviets decided to switch to multirole aircraft with the Su-7 and Su-17 Fitter fighter-bombers coming into service after 1961 and 1970 respectively, followed by the MiG-27 in 1975 and the Su-25 in 1981 as dedicated ground attack aircraft.
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Mar 23, 2021 09:33
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I don't believe loft bombing was used in WWII, you either need advanced computers to calculate your trajectory or to be lifting something like a nuke (or both). The FW-190 didn't have anything like that so I doubt it was ever used in that fashion. The FW-190 was pressed into service in the ground attack primarily out of desperation - by mid-late 1943 Germany had suffered major losses to its existing ground attack aircraft (primarily Ju-87s) and needed replacements. The FW-190 handled well at low altitudes and was rugged and stable, but was not a dedicated strike aircraft and so had to perform very low altitude runs to get accuracy and could not carry heavy bombs. By the time the FW-190 was being used in a strike role Germany was on the back foot anyway and FW-190 took heavy casualties throughout 43 and 44 in the face of increasing Soviet air superiority.
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Mar 23, 2021 13:09
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MikeCrotch posted:I don't believe loft bombing was used in WWII, you either need advanced computers to calculate your trajectory or to be lifting something like a nuke (or both). The FW-190 didn't have anything like that so I doubt it was ever used in that fashion. Has to be mentioned that Stukas were big slow targets even in like, 1940. The pace of aircraft development during WWII left designs like the Stuka in the dust. The FW 190 wasn't the best fighter-bomber, but it could dive, drop a bomb, and zoom back up to a reasonably safe altitude, or just zip away at high speed. Stukas basically could only dive to the dirt and scurry away slowly.
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Mar 23, 2021 23:52
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It seemed to me like Stuka's were best when operating in a permissive environment?
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Mar 23, 2021 23:56
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Most military aircraft perform best when nothing is shooting them
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Mar 23, 2021 23:59
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Most military aircraft perform best when nothing is shooting them On the contrary, the more you shoot a T-34 the angrier it gets. 
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Mar 24, 2021 00:05
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Most military aircraft perform best when nothing is shooting them 
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Mar 24, 2021 00:06
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Most military aircraft perform best when nothing is shooting them Raenir Salazar posted:On the contrary, the more you shoot a T-34 the angrier it gets. 
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Mar 24, 2021 00:11
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Has to be mentioned that Stukas were big slow targets even in like, 1940. The pace of aircraft development during WWII left designs like the Stuka in the dust. The FW 190 wasn't the best fighter-bomber, but it could dive, drop a bomb, and zoom back up to a reasonably safe altitude, or just zip away at high speed. Stukas basically could only dive to the dirt and scurry away slowly. Stuka's did have one trick which was their auto dive recovery. (I might have even read about it in this thread, if so apologies for stealing your thunder). You basically dove straight down at the target and dropped the bomb, at which point the plane automatically pulled up at 6+ Gs. It was automatic because this would usually cause the pilot to pass out. The plane was also tough enough to handle this process. That's why they were so accurate, and part of the shock value (at least early on) since they could come screaming down with the sun behind them before you realized they were there. So not only did they perform well unopposed, they performed particularly well, since their trajectory allowed them to line up a bomb onto a small target with some degree of accuracy. This is something a FW-190 wouldn't be able to. This design left a lot of tradeoffs as stated, to get this peak divebomber performance. Edit: Also I suspect the advances in aerial rocketry in some ways invalidated the need for super accurate land attack divebombers. SerCypher fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Mar 24, 2021 |
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Mar 24, 2021 00:43
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With the plane in a very steep dive like that, how do you get the bomb to separate cleanly? Or were they mounted on pylons rather than in a bomb bay?
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Mar 24, 2021 00:48
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So what got the most stuka kills then?
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Mar 24, 2021 00:49
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The Lone Badger posted:With the plane in a very steep dive like that, how do you get the bomb to separate cleanly? Or were they mounted on pylons rather than in a bomb bay? There is an arm that yeets it out under you.  The bomb release kicked the bomb out to the end of the arms, dropped it, and then the plane automatically pulls up as you pass out. Presumably that is enough space that the wind won't knock it back into the plane or something.
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Mar 24, 2021 00:52
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Apart from the fixed gear legs the Ju87 is a p reasonable 1935 vintage aircraft, and afaik they got a bit of mileage early war out of the dive bombing trick attacking point targets. That it wasn't great in 1943 is kinda well duh. e: holy poo poo, there was a fuckup in 1939 where for a training drop the weather report put the bottom of the cloud layer at 900m instead of the 100 it was at and 13 Stukas lawndarted. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuka-Ungl%C3%BCck_von_Neuhammer aphid_licker fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Mar 24, 2021 |
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Mar 24, 2021 01:03
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aphid_licker posted:Apart from the fixed gear legs the Ju87 is a p reasonable 1935 vintage aircraft, and afaik they got a bit of mileage early war out of the dive bombing trick attacking point targets. That it wasn't great in 1943 is kinda well duh. IIRC didn't they extend the usage of the plane by putting a massive anti-tank gun on it to a somewhat successful degree?
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Mar 24, 2021 01:06
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aphid_licker posted:Apart from the fixed gear legs the Ju87 is a p reasonable 1935 vintage aircraft, and afaik they got a bit of mileage early war out of the dive bombing trick attacking point targets. That it wasn't great in 1943 is kinda well duh. I mean CAS is great but yes you need air superiority for it to work. Something something modern USA but imagine the Afghan air force was sweeping the skies clean of the USAF.
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Mar 24, 2021 01:08
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Raenir Salazar posted:IIRC didn't they extend the usage of the plane by putting a massive anti-tank gun on it to a somewhat successful degree? I'd guess that the problem with the plane at that point wasn't really the weapon loadout, it was the speed and agility, so the gun pods didn't really help it in that respect.
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Mar 24, 2021 01:11
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